Fat of the Land
by Judah Jones
Summary: Jolene Jackson and her younger brother never had an easy life, but they had each other. "Blood is all you got," Papa taught them. But when the dead start walking, the Jackson siblings must learn to survive with others (even the wretched, redneck Dixons) or die together. Daryl/OC.
1. Dandelion Seeds

_"If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married."_

_-Deuteronomy 24:5_

The mug was a gift from Lori. "Isn't it cute," she'd said, pointing to the cartoon pig in a bulletproof vest painted on the side. Rick was sick of looking at it.

"Toss it," Shane said, perched on the edge of his partner's desk.

"I can't." Rick sighed. He glared at the mug. It was an embarrassment, but how was he supposed to explain that to his wife?

"Man up," Shane said. "If she asks, say you dropped it. Tell her you loved the mug, too, but baby, accidents happen."

"I can't lie to her. I swear, she smells it on me when I do."

Shane flicked the rim of the mug and said, "Well, I told you not to get married."

"Don't get started on that," Rick groaned.

"I did, though, didn't I? We're young. We're viral-"

"Viral?" Rick said, raising an eyebrow. "You mean virile."

"Yeah, s'what I said. All this..." Shane gestured at the office. The old, pudgy officers with bagel crumbs in their caterpillar mustaches. The filing cabinets from the 70s. The secretary swatting at flies. "All this could've been just the beginning for you, man. You could've been running with the big dogs in less than a year, making the big bucks, but that's all gone now. You married that woman and she's going to keep you here, in Kings County, until the day you die. I bet she's already lined up two nice plots for y'all in the church cemetery. Now, my on the other hand."

"Yeah, tell me about you, Shane. Go on."

"I'm getting out of here as soon as I can. Women, they get in the way. They want babies, and jewelry, and all of your time. They buy you stupid mugs and make you look like an idiot at work," Shane said.

"It's not so bad." Rick sighed. "I hate the mug. I love Lori."

"Wait until she gets pregnant. That's when they really go crazy on you."

_She is pregnant, _Rick thought, but didn't say. _Now's not the time. _He already knew how Shane would react. His partner would say something like, _better start digging your grave, daddy._ However, Rick wasn't quite sure how he felt about the pregnancy yet. Excited? A little sick? _Very sick._ He often found himself thinking about those movies, where women popped out devil babies. _Stupid, _he told himself, _this isn't a horror movie._

"When you going to have me over for dinner, anyway?" Shane asked.

"Maybe after you stop shit talking my wife," Rick said.

"Ain't nothing personal. I'm sure she's a great woman and all. Just think you rushed into things."

"We dated for two years," Rick said, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah. I hear you, alright." Shane slid off of the desk. "Want any coffee?"

"Nah, I've had enough."

"Suit yourself," Shane said, shrugging. After he'd disappeared into the back room, Rick stashed the coffee mug in the bottom drawer, and then he returned to the half finished report on his desk. He and Shane had graduated from the police academy just a little over three months ago. Since then, they hadn't seen much action. There'd been some petty car break-ins and a handful of domestic disputes. _Sheriff thinks were too green for anything more_. Rick itched for action. He was bored to death of desk duty.

Shane returned with a fresh cup of joe, but he didn't get the chance to sit. Sheriff Henderson was weaving through the desks towards them. He stopped, mopped the sweat from his red, wrinkled forehead with an embroidered handkerchief, and eyed them from under bushy, grey brows.

"Got a call from a woman who lives out by the creek," he said. "Says her neighbors are having one hell of a fight. Think you can manage it?"

"I reckon so, boss," Shane said. Sheriff Henderson nodded.

"Be careful now, boys," he said, while Rick checked that his gun was loaded. "You ain't never dealt with Billy Jackson. He's a mean son-of-a-gun."

"Another domestic," Shane grumbled, after the sheriff had gone. "See, this here is why people shouldn't get married."

Rick ignored his partner. He crossed the office, through the glass, front doors, and towards the squad car in the parking lot, with Shane close on his heels.

"I'm driving," Shane said, and he snatched the keys from Rick's hand.

* * *

><p>Jolene Jackson sat cross-legged in the overgrown yard, pulling up chunks of grass in the twilight. The cicadas sang. Out in the woods, an owl hooted. She could hear the creek burbling sluggishly in the summer heat. Her brother, Lee, slept beside her with his thumb in his mouth. <em>He sleeps through everything<em>, she thought, as another loud crash came from the house.

"Can't do nothin' right, you worthless woman," Papa hollered. Jo wiped her grass stained hands on her torn jeans. Her stomach grumbled. _Dinner'll be cold by now_. She wished she'd thought to bring a plate outside with her, but there hadn't been much time for thinking.

There was another crash. Dishes breaking. Mama started to wail. Jo clenched her fists in her lap and scowled up at the shadowy tree tops. _I hate when she screams like that._ Lee snuggled up against her. He'd just turned four. Jo had tried to bake a cake for him, but Papa had come home before she'd finished. He saw the mess she'd made in the kitchen and given her a whooping she wouldn't soon forget. Now, she touched the rotten green bruises on her arm. _Don't hurt much anymore._

A firefly landed a few inches from her bare foot. She caught it between her fingers and squished it. Its blood glowed on her hands. _Wish I were a firefly_, she thought. More of them twinkled in the yard. Jo watched them blink at each other and considered waking up Lee, so that he could see. Just as she was reaching out to shake him, she heard tires crunching over the long, gravel drive. Then, there were flashing red and blue lights coming around the bend.

"Shit, " Jo muttered, scrambling to her feet. _The pigs are here._ The squad car pulled to a stop. Two men stepped out. They walked her way. Jo scooped up her brother in her arms. Lee opened his eyes, spotted the cops marching towards them, and began to whimper.

"Hush," Jo whispered to him. "S'alright. I got you." He buried his chubby face against her shoulder.

"Hey there," Rick said, stopping a foot away from the children. Jo glared up at him.

"W d'ya want, pig," she spat. Papa had taught her to never trust a pig. _All they wanna do is take me and Lee away, stick us in a home somewhere._ Shane laughed. Rick crouched down and gave her a kind smile. She was such a tiny thing, her clothes and face dirty, but her eyes were pure steel.

"We don't mean any trouble," Rick said. "We just want to talk to your parents, if that's alright."

"It ain't," Jo said. As she spoke, there was another crash in the house, and Papa screamed, "I'll kill you this time! Don't think I won't!" Mama wailed louder than ever. Jo looked over her shoulder, towards the house. As did the two police officers.

"Alright," Rick said to his partner. "Stay with them. I'm going in."

"Not by yourself," Shane said. At the same time, Jo growled, "Like hell you are!" Neither of them paid her any attention.

"Someone's got to stay with these two," Rick said. His eyes darted to the children. "Get them out of here if things get too messy."

"Ten minutes," Shane said. "If you're not back by then, I'm coming for you."

"Deal."Rick drew his gun from its holster. Jo tried to block his path, but Shane grabbed the back of her shirt and held her still, while his partner crossed the yard and entered the house.

"Let me go!" Jo cried, as she tried to kick him.

"Just calm down, girl," Shane said. Lee was crying now. Jo dropped to the ground and crawled to her brother. She pulled him into her lap and tried to quieten him down.

"Shush, you," she said, jouncing him. _I could make a run for the house_. But she didn't want to take Lee inside and she certainly wouldn't leave him along with the pig.

"Outta my house," Papa screamed, over and over again. Shane paced around the children and checked his watch every few seconds. After ten minutes, he turned to Jo and said, "Stay out here, no matter what you hear. Look after your brother."

Then, he sprinted across the yard. Jo held her brother tight. She tried singing to him, but he was crying too loudly now. The house fell silent. She waited, and waited, and waited. Eventually, Lee went quiet, and she could only hear the cicadas. Jo watched the front door. Minutes dragged on. Twilight became night. Finally, the pigs, pushing Papa ahead of them, came out onto the front porch. Jo shoved Lee out of her lap and dashed towards them.

"Where're you taking him?" she yelled, charging at Rick. Shane leapt over the porch railing and caught her around the waist. He lifted her off of the ground and her legs kicked at the air. She clawed at his arms and screamed like a wildcat, while Rick put Papa in the back of the squad car.

"Let him go! Let him go!" she screamed.

"Goddamn, would you just...come on now." Shane grunted. She was small, but she put up one hell of a fight. He didn't let her go until Rick slammed the car door closed. Jo hit the ground again, but she was back on her feet in a flash. She rounded on Shane and beat her fists against his stomach.

"You ain't got no right, no right at all," she said.

"Listen here, kid," Shane snapped, taking hold of her wrists. "Your mama's inside right now and she's beat all to hell. You understand that?"

Jo continued to glare at him, but when he let go of her wrists, she didn't hit him again. Her lips trembled. Rick had gone back inside the house. She took a step towards the porch steps, but Shane held her back.

"I gotta help her," Jo snapped.

"People are on the way," he said. "There isn't anything you can do for her right now."

Jo kept her eyes fixed on the house. She chewed on her bottom lip and curled her fists. Papa beat against the cop car's windows, but she was thinking of Mama now.

"She gonna be okay?" Jo muttered.

"Don't you worry. She'll be just fine, but I need to talk to you."

Jo didn't say anything. She pushed past him and went back to her brother. Shane followed. He sat down beside her in the grass, but he didn't speak. They heard sirens in the distance. Then, the ambulance came rambling along the drive. Two men wheeled a stretcher to the house. _Don't you cry_, Jo ordered herself. _Don't you dare cry in front of a pig._

"How old are you, kid?" Shane asked, as the EMTs loaded Mama into the ambulance. Rick shut the doors behind them, and then went to the squad car to make a call on the radio.

"Twelve," Jo said.

"And your name?"

"None of your business."

"Alright," Shane chuckled. "You don't have to tell me. I get it. You don't know who I am and you sure don't trust me. I promise, though, we're only trying to help."

"Where you taking my daddy?" she asked.

"To the station. Now, I need you to tell me the truth. Does this happen often?"

Jo shrugged. She went back to ripping up tufts of grass.

"If you don't tell me," Shane said, "I can't help you. Or your brother. Think about him."

"Ain't nothing going to happen to him." Jo wound her arms around Lee. "You ain't taking him away."

"No one's trying to do that, but if your daddy's hurting you-"

"Papa don't hit us," she said through her teeth. Shane glanced at the bruises on her arms.

"You sure about that?" he asked. Jo finally looked at him. Thinking, she bit her lip hard. _Maybe I should tell him. Maybe_...No. Papa always said that blood was all they had. _You can't trust anyone who's not your blood._

"He don't hit us," she said. "He just had too much to drink tonight, that's all. He's never hurt Mama before, neither."

Shane sighed. There wasn't much he could do if the girl wasn't willing to tell him the truth. They could put Mr. Jackson away for awhile, but he'd get out soon enough. Men like him always did. Shane had seen it too many times before.

"Alright," he said, standing. "You got anyone you can stay with for a few days?"

"Our neighbor. Mrs. Miller," Jo said.

"We'll take the two of you there. Your mama should be back on her feet in no time." He held out his hand, but Jo stood without his help. "You call me," he said. "If you think you or your brother are ever in danger. I'm serious, kid. Don't hesitate."

Jo nodded again. Lee stared at the officer, wide-eyed, and sucked his thumb. As Jo trailed behind him, walking to Mrs. Miller's house, she sang to her brother until he stopped sniffling. _You can't trust anyone that's not your blood._ She didn't look at Papa, screaming in the backseat of the squad car, when they passed. He'd never hit Lee. That much was true. _But if he does_, she thought, _I'll call the pigs._

_ "I got you," she whispered into Lee's ear. "You and me, we're gonna be just fine. I swear it."_


	2. Harlequin

**AN:** Oh yes, the walkers will make their appearance in the next chapter. Read, review, enjoy :)

* * *

><p><em>"Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."<em>

_- John 8:7_

11 years later...

"Change? Please, Miss, any change?"

The old beggar clawed at Jo's sleeve with yellowed, broken fingernails. His breath smelled like trash. His clothes looked like trash. His boots were stuffed with newspapers. No one knew his name. It'd been lost. _Doesn't matter_, Jo thought, slapping a fiver into his dirty, open palm. _No one has a name here._

"Get something to eat," Jo said. He was on the street corner, every night, begging money from her customers when they left. She gave the old beggar what she could, when she good. _Good fortune comes to those who give_, Mama used to say. No good had come of her charity, yet.

"Can I get a kiss, too?" the old beggar asked. He puckered his wrinkled, toothless mouth.

"Fuck off," Jo said, brushing past him.

"Just a peck. C'mon."

"You can't afford it," she called over her shoulder. He shook his can of change at her back. She heard pennies rolling as she rounded the corner. _He'll die soon. He's lived too long already._

During the day, Jolene Jackson was a cashier at the Kings County General Store. When her nighttime clients came into the shop, she helped their children chose the best candy from the rows of glass jars behind the counter, and pretended she'd never seen, let alone fucked, their fathers before. She was good at her job, both of them, and she hated herself for it.

Jo checked her watch. 3 A.M. Lee would be asleep when she got home. _He should be asleep._ Then again, he might be at the creek with his delinquent friends, drinking cheap beer and getting stoned. _I'll have to talk to him about that_, she thought. _Who am I to judge, though?_ She glanced right, then left. The bars had closed down, which meant it was time for her to clock out. _Maybe I'll go to the creek. Catch him in the act and..._Do what? Ground him? Take away his toys?

Lee was fifteen, old enough to know that she wasn't his mother and she couldn't tell him what to do, but it wasn't as if Mama was in any state to look after him. Jo did her best. Her best, she'd discovered, was rarely good enough. She came to an intersection. Across the street was the park, a swatch of grass bordered by concrete sidewalk. Crossing through was the quickest way home, as well as the most dangerous. She was too tired to care about the shadowy muggers who may or may not be wandering the park. Besides, she had Papa's hunting knife in her boot.

Skipping over the double yellow line in the middle of the road, she heard a siren chirp. Blue lights burst in the night. _Idiot__**, **_Jo cursed at herself. She hadn't seen the squad car. For a second, she debated whether she should run, but the cop was already out of the car.

"What the hell you doing out here?" Shane called out. Jo relaxed. She shielded her eyes against the blue lights and squinted at him.

"None of your business, pig," she said, half smiling.

"I asked you a question, girl, now you give me an answer." He strode towards her, his lips down turned and his eyes narrowed. _Someone's in a mood_, she thought.

"I'm working," Jo said, shrugging. "Just got off, actually."

"Christ, I told you, didn't I, the next time I caught you out here I'd have to take you in," Shane said. He pulled her arms behind her back and clapped her wrists in handcuffs. Jo resisted her natural instinct to knee him in the groin.

"Don't you got to read my rights?" she asked. Behind her, Shane snorted.

"Like you haven't heard them before." He gave her a gentle push in the direction of the squad car, the engine still running. He flung open the back, passenger door and gestured for her to climb in.

"Can I get a smoke first?" Jo asked. Shane scowled. "C'mon, it's been a long night."

"Fine," he grunted.

"They're in my pocket."

He fetched the soft-pack of Marlboros from her back pocket, shook one out, and set it between her parted, waiting lips.

"Light," she muttered around the filter. Once the tip ignited, she inhaled and leaned against the car, with the cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. She watched the ash grow until it crumbled, unable to sustain its own weight. Everything was so quiet, so still. There was only the hum of the engine. Sweat beaded along Jo's hairline.

"I heard about Rick," she said, spitting the cigarette butt onto the ground and stomping it under her heel. "I've been meaning to pay him a visit."

"Waste of time," Shane said, running a hand through his thick, dark hair. "He's still out cold."

"Well, I'm sure he'll pull through. Going to take more than one, lousy bullet to take out Rick Grimes."

"Damn, if that ain't the truth." Shane grinned for a moment. It faltered quickly. "I thought he was dead, Jo. I saw him get hit. Then he was on the ground. Everything was so loud. I stopped hearing. I shouldn't have dropped my guard. I shouldn't have-"

"Shut up," Jo said. "He ain't dead, alright? It's not your fault, what happened, so you're wasting breath talking that way."

Shane ran his hand through his hair again and stared at her, while she scraped the toe of her boot against the pavement. After a minute, he sighed, and said, "You're right. I know." Then, he fished the handcuff keys from his pocket, turned her around by the shoulders, and released her hands. He walked around her and threw open the passenger side door.

"Get in," he said. "I'll take you home."

"Knew you didn't have the balls to arrest me," Jo said.

"Don't push your luck, kid. I would, but Lee shouldn't be home alone. There's strange stories on the news."

"He's not alone," she said, getting into the car. "Mama's there."_She never leaves._

Shane shut the door. Immediately, Jo pressed her sweaty forehead to the window. She pretended to fall asleep. Shane knew she only had her eyes closed, but he took the hint, and didn't say anything on the drive home.

* * *

><p>Jo watched the squad car disappear down the long, dirt road from the front porch. She was thinking about everything that needed fixing before winter. The house was falling apart board by board. <em>Mama can't take another winter sleeping on pallets in the living room.<em> There were broken windows, ancient and leaking plumbing, holes in the roof, and a possum family in the attic. _Home sweet home._ The front door always stuck in the summer. She budged it open.

Inside, the television flickered. The news. Something about disasters and stay indoors. Jo turned it off. People who watched the news, in her opinion, knew more than they needed to and less than they should. _Dead babies in dumpsters, dead prostitutes in dumpsters, tips for keeping slim during the holidays. _Bullshit. _Everyone ends up in a dumpster and everyone gets fat._

"I'm home," she called out. There was no reply. Not even an echo. A crucifix hung on the wall behind the pull-out couch. Every day, she wanted to tear it down and burn it out back with the rest of the trash. _Not until Mama dies_, she reminded herself, again.

Jo went to the back bedroom to check on Mama. Heavy and dark, the room smelled of death. She didn't cross the threshold. Moonlight fell over Mama's small, pale face, lost in a paisley pillowcase. Her cancer was the slow kind. She stopped breathing for a moment. Then started up again. Tufts of white, feathery hair sprouted from her splotchy, raw skull. Jo hadn't touched her in a year. She couldn't. That was Lee's job. _And the day nurse_, who Rick had hired without her consent.

"You're going to die," Jo whispered from the cracked doorway. Everyone had known it for a long, long time. Mama stopped breathing. Then started again. Jo closed the door.

Lee was in the kitchen, banging around and slamming cabinets. She followed the sounds. Her brother had come in through the back door and tracked mud across the yellow linoleum. _He's tall_, Jo thought, watching him stagger to the refrigerator. _He's drunk._

"You didn't smother Mama with a pillow, did you?" Lee asked, with his face hidden in the fridge.

"There's ice cream," Jo said, ignoring his comment. "Rocky Road. Help yourself."

"Already did." He surfaced with the milk jug in hand and emptied the last of it into a bowl of store-brand sugar flakes.

"Leave any for me?" Jo asked.

"Nope."

"Throw away the carton?"

"Nope." Lee hopped onto the counter. His feet almost touched the floor. _Long legs. Like Papa._ He slurped milk from his spoon and followed Jo with his eyes as she moved to the window.

"You high?" she asked, yawning. Lee shrugged. Milk splashed over the lip of the bowl. He wiped it up with his socked foot.

"If I am, you gonna spank me or something?"

"Fine, forget it," Jo snapped. She was dead tired. _Not tonight. Tomorrow._ Longing for a shower and bed, she turned her back on her brother. She heard him jump down from the counter. The bowl crashed to the floor. Jo spun around.

"I know what you do out there," Lee said, standing in a puddle of milk and soggy cornflakes.

"Good for you," she said. She'd known for a long time that this confrontation was inevitable, but she wasn't prepared for it. _How do you prepare for this?_

"Everyone knows," Lee said. "You fucked Bobby Richmond's dad and you paid him for it. His parents are getting a divorce. He's telling everyone at school that you're a...a..."

"Whore," she finished for him. Her cheeks flamed from anger and humiliation. "You gonna accuse me of something, you'd better be able to say the word."

Lee glared at her. She felt he was waiting for something. But what? An apology, an explanation, justification? She didn't have any of that to give him. Instead, she chucked the wad of her night's earnings at his head.

"There," she said. "It's all for you and Mama, anyway." Jo marched past him. Lee stood speechless, with his socks soaked in milk, and gaping at the money on the floor.

"And the next time I hear you cussing," Jo said, "I swear, I'll shove a bar of soap so far down your throat, you'll be shitting bubbles for weeks." Then, she stormed out of the kitchen.

In her room, Jo buried her face in her pillow and screamed once, twice...she lost count. When she'd screamed out as much as she could, she rolled over onto her back and stared at the brown water stain, expanding daily, on the ceiling. _This house is cursed_. Downstairs, a door slammed. _Lee._

Jo lifted her head. Black clouds parted and dusty moonlight streaked across the knotted, pinewood floor. _I have to apologize._ The thought brought a frown to her lips. Still, Lee deserved whatever explanation she could give. He was young, arrogant, and without a doubt that his rage was justified. _Maybe it is. Maybe mine is, too._ One way or the other, he needed her. The day that he didn't anymore, well, she figured that was the day she wouldn't have anything else to live for.

_ Strange stories on the news, _Shane had said. Jo hadn't given his words much thought, but standing on the front porch again, and staring out into the dark, a shiver ran down her spine at the memory. Her brother was out there somewhere, plowing through the woods in a fury. She went back to the kitchen, found a flashlight under the sink, braced herself, and followed Lee's muddy footprints out the back door. She didn't what she'd say to him when she found him. The words just weren't there._ They don't exist. _She set out across the dead grass. I'll just have to try my best.


	3. Red Anemones

"O Lord, be gracious to us; we long for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of distress."

-Isaiah 33:2

Jo was halfway across the yard when it happened. The scream. Clear and sharp, it burst from the woods, and it kept bursting. Without pause._ Lee._ She ran. She plunged into the dark sea of trees, following the scream and not asking herself what it led to or bothering to turn on the flashlight. _Lee. Strange stories. You're gonna die._ The night was wrong. It had been all along, but she'd ignored it. Business had been slow for a Saturday. _The empty streets in town. Shane's expression. Strange stories, strange..._and the quiet. It'd taken the scream to make her realize how unnaturally quiet it was.

Ms. Miller, the widow from next door, leapt out from between two tall pines. Jo veered to the left to avoid crashing into the old woman.

"What're you doing-"Jo stopped mid-question. A sliver of moonlight broke through the tree tops and splashed over Ms. Miller: the dark splatters on her apron, her wispy hair hanging loose from its bun, her inwardly curled, leathery lips. _Her throat_.. It was cut open from ear to ear. Jo stared, unbelieving. _Impossible. Trick of the light. The lack of light. Fucking impossible._

Then, the widow lunged. She caught the end of Jo's ponytail. All thoughts fell away. Instinct took over. Jo balled her fist and struck the old woman in the neck. Ms. Miller snarled. She stumbled back and gnashed her toothless gums. Jo kept running. The scream had stopped. Her fist was slick with blood and she'd dropped the flashlight during her encounter with the widow. _I felt her windpipe_, Jo thought, but she wouldn't allow herself to go any farther than that. _Fucking impossible._

The scream had come from the creek. She was certain. _Ir did it_, she asked herself, as she slid down the slope to the water, oblivious to the briars and sticks stabbing her bare legs. There wasn't time to find the path down. She held onto roots and barbed vines to direct her course in the dark. _Lee. Lee. I'm coming._ The slope evened out to a muddy bank. Jo was on her feet and running alongside the creek. Water bubbled over the rocks, but no frogs croaked. No cicadas sang.

"Lee!" she screamed, cupping her hands around her mouth. Nothing. Her fist was slick with blood. She'd felt the widow's windpipe. _No, no, impossible_. "Lee!" Dark splatters on the widow's apron. _Blood? Couldn't be. Too much. Was it hers? Was it..._ "LEE!"

"Jo?" There he was, standing on the opposite bank, shaking in the moonlight, with dark splatters on his t-shirt. Jo waded across the water, her feet slipping over the stones, and collapsed at his feet. Before falling, she wrapped her arm around his neck, bringing him down with her. She clutched a fistful of his shirt. _Blood, definitely blood._

"Are you-?"

"Not mine," Lee said. He lifted his hand and pointed to a log, or a rock, or..._A man_, Jo thought, her stomach churning. _A dead man._

"He came at me," Lee said. "Tried to...to..."

"C'mon." Jo stood. They couldn't stay here. _Mama's alone. We're blind, vulnerable. Strange stories, fuck me._ "Tell me later," she said. Lee didn't move. His eyes darted to the dead man, then away, and then back again.

"I bashed his head in with a rock," he said. Jo grabbed her brother's arm and hefted him up.

"C'mon," she said again. Still, he wouldn't budge.

"I'm gonna..." And he puked all over their shoes. Jo didn't jump back. She threw his arm over her shoulder, to hold him up while he spewed. She thought she could hear things moving through the trees behind them, in front of them, all around them. _We have to go._

"C'mon, c'mon," she said, again and again and again. She dragged Lee across the creek, up the slope, and into the thick trees. Every few minutes, he puked again, but she didn't let them stop. "Walk through it," she told him, certain that she could see things moving through the trees behind them now. Moving slowly. By the time they stumbled out into their backyard, Lee had begun to sob. There were no tears. Only a choked, terrified sound, unlike anything she'd heard come from him before.

"It's okay. C'mon, almost there," she coaxed, pulling him along the last stretch. A car idled in the front yard, off of the dirt driveway. Headlights splashed against the front of the house. Someone was running towards them. Jo stepped in front of her brother.

"Hold up," she whispered. Lee's knees buckled. He crumpled against her back. _Fuck_, she thought, not taking her eyes off of the man charging towards them.

"What happened?" the man asked, less than five feet away. _Thank God, it's Shane._

"Lee..." Jo started, but then Shane was standing right in front of them, still in his uniform. _Lee what? Killed a man. I can't tell him that._ "He was at the creek," she went on. "I heard a scream, so I ran down there."

Shane knelt in the grass and stared hard at Lee's bloodless face and the splatters on his shirt.

"Ms. Miller," Jo said. "She's out in the woods somewhere. I think she's hurt."

Shane made no reaction. "Can you walk?" he asked Lee, but Lee was somewhere else. His eyes were glazed. Sick glistened on his chin. "Alright then," Shane said. He hefted the lanky fifteen year old over his shoulder. Jo jogged behind them to the house. She looked anywhere but at her brother's head hanging limp against Shane's back. _I bashed his head in with a rock. I bashed his head in..._

The kitchen door hung wide open. Shane set Lee down on the steps, held a finger to his lips, gestured for them to wait, and slunk into the house with a hand on his gun. Jo could hear her watch tick, second after second, and Lee's ragged breaths. She reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but he shifted away.

"Lee...?"

"All clear," Shane called from inside. Lee, seeming to have regained the use of his legs, stumbled into the house. _Bashed his head in. Strange stories._ Jo stood outside for a moment, craned her neck back, and looked at the hazy moon glow around the black clouds.

"Get in here," Shane growled, grabbing her wrist and pulling her inside. He locked the door behind them and pushed the kitchen table against it. Then, he drew back the yellowed curtains over the window above the sink, and peaked through a crack at the night.

"What are you looking for?" Jo asked, her arms folded over her chest. _Where'd Lee go?_

"Nothing," Shane said.

"You going to find Ms. Miller? She looked bad off."

"No." He stepped back from the window, crossed the kitchen, and brushed past her. Jo followed him down the to the front door. "You and Lee stay here," Shane said, his hand on the doorknob. "And block the door when I leave. Don't let anyone else in, you hear?"

"What the hell's going on?" Jo snapped. "Lee was attacked out there!"

"He tried to eat me."

Jo startled. She spun around. Lee stood behind her, leaning against the wall.

"It was that fucking peach farmer," he said, barely whispering. "I had to..."

"Shut up," Jo said, before he could say something stupid. She rounded on Shane. "Tell me what's happening. Where the fuck are you going?"

"Got to get Rick," Shane said, turning the doorknob. "You should be safe here. I'll only be gone a minute."

"Rick? He's in the hospital. Are you crazy?"

"Watch the news," Shane said. "Block the door." He slipped out into the dark. Jo thought about going after him. She heard Lee shuffling down the hallway. Mama's bedroom door opened and closed. Jo stood alone in the quiet, in the unlit house. _He tried to eat me. I bashed his head in with a rock. _She took a chair from the living room and jammed it under the doorknob. It'd have to do. She couldn't move anything heavier by herself.

* * *

><p>"Remain inside. Do not panic."<p>

"CDC officials have no comment."

"Reports of the dead rising up all over town."

"Cannibalism virus? Is it possible?"

"Remain inside."

"Do not panic."

Jo had been flipping between news channels since Shane left. _Fucking Lazarus rising_, she thought, as she chucked the remote control across the room. She'd seen more than enough. The sun was coming up. Dew sparkled on the lawn.

Barefoot, she padded down the hall and stopped at Mama's door. Lee hadn't come out. She didn't want to go in. _He knows that. It's why he's in there._ Jo pushed open the door, one inch at a time. Mama, gray and motionless, was in the bed, her brittle chest rising and falling under the bleach worn sheets. In the corner, on the floor, Lee sat with his knees pressed to his chest.

"Did you hear the news?" she asked, hesitant to pass over the threshold of the sick room. Lee nodded. Sound travelled in the old house. Nothing was secret.

"He was sick," Jo said. "The man you killed."

Lee turned his face away from the light streaming in from the hallway.

"You should get some sleep," she said. "I'll make you a bologna sandwich and bring it up to your room."

Still, he didn't speak. Jo took a step forward, but then someone banged on the front door.

"Could be Shane," she said, looking over her shoulder. "I should check. Stay here." He wasn't going anywhere. She shut the door and tip-toed down the hall.

"Open up," Shane shouted, pounding his fist against the door. She kicked aside the chair and threw it open. Three people were huddled on the porch; Shane, a tall and dark-haired woman, and a baby-faced boy.

"Rick?" Jo asked, looking the three of them over. The dark-haired woman dug her bony fingers into the boy's jacket. Shane shook his head. "Well, come in," she said, stepping aside for them. The woman and boy idled in the hallway, while she and Shane dragged the two-person sofa from the living room and put it against the door.

"Just in case," Shane said. He turned to Jo. "Got any blankets, pillows? Somewhere they can sleep?"

Jo glanced at the woman and boy, but didn't ask any questions. They looked worn. The boys eyes were red and puffy. He kept his face half buried under the woman's arm.

"Yeah, right, of course. They can, erm, crash in my room," Jo said.

"I'll show them." Shane started up the steps, the woman and boy trailing behind him. Jo went to the kitchen. She began making tea, but decided something stronger was called for, and took a bottle of whiskey down from the top cabinet. _Lee's been sneaking sips_, she thought, as she poured a shot into a dusty glass. She leaned against the counter, shot in one hand, and the other pressed to her throbbing temple. Shane entered. Without a word, he took the whisky bottle from her hand and gulped down a third of it. Minutes ticked by.

At last, Jo said, "You're hogging it," and took the bottle back. She didn't drink. Her stomach was all in knots. "Who are they?" she asked.

"Rick's wife, his son," Shane grunted.

"And Rick, he's...?"

Shane shook his head, took back the whiskey, and drank. "Hospital was overrun," he said. "Army was there, shooting people. Not those things, but real people. Sick people."

"But Rick," Jo pressed.

"Dead."Shane refused to look at her. The linoleum reared up under her feet. She put a hand on the counter to steady herself. _It'll take more than one lousy bullet to take down Rick Grimes. Dead? Fucking impossible._ Her ears rang.

"We have to get out of her," Shane said.

"What d'you mean?"Jo asked. His eyes were hard when he finally looked at her.

"It's a mess out there. Dead people, popping back up, in the streets."

"So, it's true?"

"Yeah."

"The police...?"

"Gone, most of them," Shane said. "The ones left, well, it don't sound too good, judging by what I heard over the CB. Stations crawling with those things."

Jo looked out the window. There was nothing. Whatever was happening out there hadn't yet reached them full force. Her eyes roamed to the treeline. Was Ms. Miller still out there, stumbling through the trees? _We should help her._ But how? She remembered what the newscasters had said. _Stay clear of infected persons. Do not, we repeat, do not, go near them. All we know is that the disease appears highly infectious._ Realization began to sink in. They couldn't help Ms. Miller. _She's dead._

"Lee killed the peach farmer," Jo blurted. She couldn't carry it alone. Thinking of her brother, hiding in Mama's room, she felt faint again.

"I know," Shane said. "The blood on his shirt, it's not his. Hardly a mark on him."

"What do I say to him?"

"Nothing yet." Shane pushed off of the counter. "I'll keep watch. Get some sleep. We leave tonight."

Jo didn't argue. People were rising from the dead. Lee had killed a man. Ms. Miller, hungry for human flesh, was wandering the woods. Rick Grimes was dead and they were shooting people at the hospital. It was too much. She curled up on the couch and listened to Shane's heavy boots pace up and down the hall. Upstairs, the boy could be heard sobbing. _Rick's son._

Jo didn't sleep. Tonight, they'd leave and go somewhere. She didn't know where, but she trusted Shane. As for the house, _let it burn_.

_What about Mama, _a small voice asked in the back of her mind. _She can't leave._

"We can't leave," Jo told Shane a few hours later. He didn't even look up at her.

"We have to. Look." He pointed out the small, square windowpanes on either side of the door. The glass was cloudy, but when she pressed her face to it, she could see dark shapes moving across the yard. Five or six of them.

"Mama can't walk," Jo said, chewing her bottom lip. The floorboards above them creaked. _Rick's wife? Ghosts?_

"She won't make it out there," Shane said, his voice flat. Of everything that had happened, those words frightened her the most. She knew what they meant and she didn't want to. She'd thought it before he'd said it.

"Is it really that bad?" she asked.

"Yeah, is it. I get the feeling it's only going to get worse."

The sky was turning dark blue. _She won't make it_. Jo put her face to the windowpane again and watched the people in the yard.

"What if I stay with her?" she asked. "You take Lee."

"I won't leave you here to die." Shane put his hand on her shoulder. His eyes softened. For a moment, she thought he was going to cry. Instead, he said, "I'll do what has to be done." Jo ducked out from under his hand. She hurried away, but stopped at Mama's bedroom door. _You're gonna die. _You've been dying for years.

"Think about your brother," Shane said.

"Do what you have to," Jo said coldly. Someday, she would thank him. Today, she had to be angry with someone, and God was too far out of reach.


	4. Mother of the Evening

**AN: **Shorter chapter this time. More familiar characters to appear in the next installment. Read, review, enjoy :)

* * *

><p>"Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother, their blood will be on their own head."<p>

-Leviticus 20:9

Jo stood over an empty duffel bag. _What do you pack for the apocalypse?_ Lori's and Shane's muffled conversation drifted up through her bedroom floor.

"Atlanta," Lori said, her voice rising. "It's so far."

Atlanta was far, but there were eight infected people in the yard now. They'd started coming to the door and windows. _They're closing in on us._ Lori's voice fell to an inaudible whisper once more. She'd made Jo's bed before coming downstairs. Jo couldn't remember the last time someone had done that for her.

She was purposefully not thinking about Rick. His family, shuffling around downstairs, made it difficult. His son stared at her with big, brown eyes. _Like Rick's_. Lori muttered thank-yous, while looking at her feet. The sun had sunk below the treeline. Jo looked out her bedroom window for the last time. There used to be a tree growing alongside of the house, which she'd climbed down in high school. _Daddy chopped it down when he caught me_. She fingered the smooth, white scar on her thigh. _He beat me good, too._

All gone now. _Good riddance._ Jo pulled clothes from her dresser, without looking at them, and dumped her armful of sweaters and jeans into the duffel. Shane had already taken what he could find, which wasn't much, in the kitchen. Jo went from one empty room to the next, checking the closets for jackets, shoes, or anything useful. Mostly, she found dust. Only she and Lee had lived upstairs for years. The house was too big. It always had been. Built by their great-great-great-grandfather over one hundred years ago, it had passed into Papa's hands. She felt its ghosts breathing down the back of her neck, while she held up one of Papa's hunting jackets, inspecting it for holes.

She came to Lee's room last. It was a mess. Clothes strewn over everything, graphic novels broken open on the floor, dirty dishes growing mold. She packed his clothes, folding them carefully, unlike how she'd treated her own. Under his pillow, she found an old family photo: her, Lee, and Mama sitting on a picnic blanket in the yard. _Papa was out of town, on a bender_, she remembered, as she tucked the picture into her pocket. _One of the last good days._ In a shoe box, shoved in the back of the closet under a pile of dirty clothes, Jo found a plastic baggy of weed. _What the hell._ She added it to her brother's suitcase.

Gently, she closed Lee's bedroom door. Lori was in the kitchen, holding a cup of tea which she didn't drink.

"Shane?" Jo asked.

"Looking for weapons." Lori clenched and unclenched her fingers around the chipped mug in her hands. On the counter behind her, beside the sink, was a stack of dishes, still wet from having been washed.

"You don't have to do any housework, you know," Jo said, trying, and failing, to smile.

"Makes me feel better. The normalcy of it." Lori looked up from the warm, brown liquid swirling in her cup. She pursed her lips and inspected Jo for a moment. "I know what you do," she said. "At least, what you did."

"I swear I never touched Rick," Jo said, her cheeks flaming. Lori winced at her husband's name.

"I...I know," Lori said after another pause. She looked back into the cup, as if it could give her answers. _What are the questions?_ "You took us in," she said. "Me and my son. Gave us a place to sleep, to..."

_Grieve_, Jo thought, but didn't say. The grief was far from over. It hung in the air. It clung to every inch of Lori, the way her son had on the doorstep.

"I just wanted to let you know, well, you didn't have to do that," Lori said. "If you'd seen it out there...we'd have died."

"We might still," Jo said. She regretted it as soon as she did. The truth of it more than anything else. Tears sparkled in Lori's eyes. Jo muttered something about finding her brother, and then escaped before Rick's wife, _Rick's widow_, began to cry. Passing by the living room, she caught a glimpse of Rick's son, sleeping on the couch.

When she pushed open Mama's bedroom door, she found Lee standing at the bedside, clutching Mama's withered hand. He looked up when Jo entered.

"We're leaving," Lee said. She nodded.

"I packed your bag. If there's anything you want to add, do it now."

"And Mama?" he asked, looking down at Mama's waxy face, sunken in the pillowcase.

"Shane will carry her to the car," Jo said. _Do what you have to_. "Go on, we leave soon."

Lee squeezed Mama's hand before exiting the room. Jo took his place at the bedside. The stench burned her eyes. Hand shaking, she brushed her fingers against Mama's furrowed, papery brow. She knelt on the floor, buried her face in the bleached sheets, and gagged on the smell of slow, clinical decay. _Don't you cry_, she told herself.

"Forgive me, Mama," she whispered. Mama stopped breathing, then started again. _It's the only blessing I'm going to get. She hasn't spoken in a year._ Jo took a breath, pulling herself together, and left the room, without looking back. Shane waited for her in the hall.

"I cleared the yard," he said, wiping flecks of blood from his forehead. "Lori and Carl are in the car."

Jo nodded. She knew what that meant. Lee thundered down the stairs.

"I'll take him," she said. "Do it." She stepped aside, so that Shane could enter the sick room. Jo met her brother at the foot of the stairs.

"Does Shane need help?" he asked, hefting his bag higher onto his shoulder.

"No, he's got it. C'mon." Together, they walked through the front door. Jo tried to hold up a blank expression. She strode towards the squad car. Lori and the boy watched them from the front seat, their faces pale and peaked. The sight of them, their sorrow, brought Jo to a halt.

"What's wrong?" Lee asked, looking back at her. Jo opened her mouth to say _nothing_, but nothing came out. "Jo, what is it?" He looked to the car, spotted Lori clamping her hands over her son's ears, and understanding lit his face.

"No," he said, dropping his bag. "No!"

"Lee, please," Jo said, reaching for him. "There's no way."But he was already sprinting back to the house. Jo ran after him. She threw her arms around his waist and struggled to hold him back.

"No," Lee screamed, thrashing in her arms. "Mama! Mama!"

"I'm sorry," Jo said. Her apology was drowned out by a single gun shot, ringing across the yard. She dropped her arms, letting her brother go, and expected him to keep running to the house. Instead, he stared at the front door, breathing hard, until Shane stepped onto the porch. Then, he spun on his heels, his fist swinging, and struck Jo across the face. She fell, more from the shock than the force. Lee towered over her for a moment, panting still, with ice in his eyes. _He looks like Papa_, she thought, waiting for him to hit her again, and knowing she wouldn't try to stop him. He didn't try, though. Without a word, Lee strode to the car.

Shane's shadow fell over Jo. "C'mon," he said, lifting her up from the ground. Her hand pressed to her stinging cheek, she walked with him to the car and climbed into the back. Lee shifted as close to the window as he could. _As far from me as the backseat allows._ No one spoke. Gun shot echoed in their ears. _Forgive me_, Jo thought. _Forgive me. _She counted the bodies in the yard. Some she recognized. Others she didn't. Over the CB radio, the last officer standing in King's County, said, "Walkers everywhere. Signing out, fellows. Good luck."

_Walkers_, she thought, looking at the bodies. The squad car flew down the long, gravel road. Gun shot echoed. Carl's sobs were muffled against his mother's shirt. Shane kept his eyes on the road ahead. Jo didn't know what Lee was doing. She couldn't look at him. Once the house disappeared behind them, Jo remembered that she'd never washed Ms. Miller's blood from her hands.


	5. Poppy Sleep

**AN: **I swear, Daryl's going to show up eventually, along with other characters. Read, review, enjoy :))

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><p>"For it is not an enemy who taunts me—then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend."<p>

-Psalm 55: 12-13

Traffic was deadlocked. Atlanta, a beacon in the night, shone in the distance. Jo sat by the side of the road, smoking a cigarette and watching the strangers panic. People were in their cars, radio static spilling from their open windows, or they strolled in clumps down the road. Up ahead, she saw a bald man climb onto his car, put his hands over his eyes, and look towards the city. _Hello, Christopher Columbus_, she thought. _See any new horizons?_ For hours, they'd driven in silence. The daylight had slid past, unnoticed. Jo watched the bald man clamber back down to the ground and call out something to his wife. _Or his sister, his friend, his neighbor_. They could all be anyone.

"Looks like we're gonna be camped here tonight," Shane said, joining her. The squad car was parked nearby. Lori leaned against the hood and chatted with a gray haired woman. Carl slept in the backseat. Lee fumbled with the radio dial. There hadn't been more than static in hours. _Walkers everywhere. Signing out, fellows._

"He'll be alright," Shane said, following the path of her eyes to her brother.

"Sure," Jo said, looking away.

"How you holding up?"

"Don't." She pinched herself. _I'm awake._

"Jo," Shane said.

"Don't." She got to her feet, brushed the dirt from her jeans, and realized she didn't have anywhere else to go than where she already was. "Who's Lori talking to?" she asked.

"Some woman. Carol, I think she said."

Jo didn't give a shit about the woman, her name, or any of them. The people were loud. They shouted at each other, sometimes they sang, or honked their horns. People she didn't know and didn't want to know.

"He'll forgive you," Shane set. Jo let loose a short bark of laughter. _He won't_, she thought, _he shouldn't_.

"What d'ya think's going on up there?" she asked, looking past the cars to the bright, beacon city. _Does it look like salvation?_ She had doubts.

"No idea."Shane took a pack of half-eaten, slightly crushed peanut butter crackers from his pocket, and tossed them at her. "Eat," he said.

"Not hungry. Give them to the kid." Jo tried to return them, but Shane wouldn't accept.

"Eat," he said again. "Take a walk. Clear your head. I'll look after Lee."

"Yeah, alright." _I could walk to the moon and still not have a clear head._ "Don't let him run off. He might try," she said.

Jo kept to the shoulder of the road and walked in the direction of the city. Headlights lit her way. It was bright as day. The air was hot and muggy. She shrugged off her jacket and dragged it along behind her, through the dirt. They were going nowhere. Ten minutes felt like an hour. An hour was a day. _Where are we? What are we doing?_ She shuffled past all of the people, but didn't look at them. _You're gonna die_, she thought to herself in a sing-song voice.

And she remembered a song that Papa once sang to Lee, in his cradle. _Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing. Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago? Young girls have picked them everyone. Oh, when will they ever learn? _ She hummed, without being aware of it, and when she glanced over her shoulder, she couldn't see the squad car anymore. It was gone.

The noise was unbearable. The peoples' chattering, their sobs, prayers, and disgusting laughter. Life pulsated everywhere. It beat against Jo insistently and unavoidable. She focused on remembering Papa's song. _Where have all the graveyards gone, long time passing? Where have all the graveyards gone, long time ago? Gone to flowers, everyone. Oh, when will they ever learn?_

Jo stopped, suddenly struggling for breath. The air was too thick. She doubled over, gasping and dizzy. _Where am I? _The headlights burned. _Who will bury Mama?_ The thought dug its claws into her mind. _Who will bury Mama?_

Perched atop the RV, Dale watched a young, blonde woman walk towards them, dragging her feet and looking down. He saw her stop and sway, then slump to the ground.

"Andrea!" he called down into the RV. "We've got a situation outside."

* * *

><p>Voice came and went. Jo cracked her eyelids and saw a gathering of shadows. Then nothing. <em>Go back<em>, she heard Mama say. _No thanks_, she thought in return. Why would she want to go back? Go back to what? Waiting in deadlocked traffic for a salvation she didn't believe in. Strange, disjointed images flashed across the dark of her semi-conscious mind. _Five year old Lee on the tire swing, going higher and higher, reaching for the summer blue sky with jelly-sticky hands. Mama crying and bleeding on the kitchen floor. Papa, screaming "Traitor," in the back window of a cop car. Lee on the bank of the creek, dark splatters on his t-shirt, I bashed his head in...Mama, Mama, no!_

The voices came again.

"Who is she?"

"Don't know."

The voices left. _Never trust a pig. Who will bury Rick?_

"Who will bury Mama?" Jo moaned aloud. _Who will bury Ms. Miller? Who will bury the peach farmer? Lee, I won't let anything happen to you. I promise. Bashed his head. Tried to eat me. What about Mama? Shane will carry her to the car. Do what you have to. Do it._

_ Jolene, come back_, Mama said. _Think of your brother._

_It's all I ever do, Mama_, Jo thought back. _But what now? The world's over. It's burning. Who will bury you? They're shooting sick people in the hospital, putting them down. Who will bury them?_

The voices came, stronger this time.

"Is she infected?"

"No bites. Just a few scratches."

"The blood on her hands...?"

"Dried, old."

The voices went. _Come back right now_, Mama said. _Not until I bury you_, Jo thought. _No, no, no. I can't. Think of your brother. How could you, Jo? You're gonna die. Forgive me. Please, forgive me._

_ Go back, Jolene, go back._

Jo fell back into her body. There were no voices nearby, but she could hear the chatter, the laughter, the songs and the prayers from outside. For a moment, she thought she was home, wondered why so many people were in the yard, and then opened her eyes. _Not my room, _she thought. _Where am I?_ _Where's Lee?_

The events of the past two days returned to her slowly. Jo turned her throbbing head to the side. She was in a camper. Her hot, sweaty skin stuck to an itchy blanket that someone had thrown over. She kicked it off, tried to sit, and fell back onto her elbows when the world tilted.

"When was the last time you ate?" a voice asked from the dark. There was a kiss. A kerosene lamp came to life. Jo blinked against the sudden light, which illuminated a stranger's face. A woman, older than her, but not by too much, with a curly, blonde ponytail and a gun strapped to her thick, leather belt.

"Don't know," Jo mumbled.

"You don't know?" the woman asked. She raised an eyebrow, and then pulled open a cabinet door.

"Guess I forgot," Jo said. An apple soared through the air and landed with a thud in her lap.

"Dig in," the woman said, as she leaned against the counter and folded her arms across her chest. Jo rolled the apple between her palms. The woman watched her every move. Jo's stomach broke the silence with a mighty, bowel churning growl. The woman grinned.

"Go on," she said. "There aren't any worms in it."

Jo sunk her teeth into the flesh of the apple. Granny smith, her favorite. Sour, sticky juice spilled down her chin. One bite was all it took to forget about the woman. Jo devoured the apple, down to the core, and licked the juice from her fingers. Finished, she felt like a savage. She stared at the hand she'd just licked, still caked with Ms. Miller's blood.

"One second," the woman said. She grabbed a bucket from under the sink, took the two steps to the bed, and thrust it under Jo's head just int time. Undigested bits of apple hit the bottom of the bucket. Plop. Plop. _What goes in, must come out. _When Jo was done, the woman lifted her head back onto the pillow and pushed her sweat drenched bangs out of her eyes.

"Better luck next time," the woman said, and then retreated to her place by the counter. "Are you alone?" she asked. Jo shook her head. _Lee, shit._

"My brother," she said. "He's here, down the road. Some others, too."

"If you give me their names, we can try to find them. Get you back to your people."

Jo shuddered. _My people?_ _Rick's widow and son? I don't know them, not really. Shane? A brother who hates me?_ For a second, she thought about lying. _Oh wait, that was just my feverish brain talking. I don't have any people. _The woman was still watching her, waiting for an answer.

_Selfish_, Jo hissed at herself. How could she kill Mama and then abandon her brother with no one? _He's got Shane, Lori, and Carl._ It was the perfect family dynamic. Mom and dad. Two brothers. _They don't need me..._Then she heard Papa's voice in her head. _Blood's thicker than water, girl. It's all you got, so don't you forget it. _"Traitor," he'd screamed at her, on the day Shane and Rick had taken him away for good. Traitor, the word carved into Lee's eyes when he'd stood over her, gun shot echoing in their ears.

"Shane," Jo said. "Shane Walsh. They're in a squad car, away from the city."

"We'll find him," the woman said, pushing off of the counter. "You should try and sleep a little more. Help yourself to anything from the cabinets if you feel up to it."

"Thanks."

The woman leapt down the two stair dip by the door, turned the flat handle, and nudged the door open.

"Oh yeah," she said, turning back. "What's your name?"

"Jo."

The woman pursed her pale lips. In the headlight glow, Jo noticed that her eyes were clear green. _Like shards of sea glass._

"I'm Andrea," she said. "Rest up, Jo. There's someone up top." Andrea pointed to the roof. "Yell if you need anything. Shouldn't take us long to find this cop car." Then, she slipped out the door. Jo was glad that she'd left the kerosene lamp burning.

She rolled onto her stomach, nestled her face in the pillow, which smelled faintly of motor oil, and squeezed her eyes shut tight. _How long have we been on this road?_ Jo pulled her hand out from under the pillow to check her watch. The glass was cracked. Time had stopped at 11:33. She scanned the camper for a clock. There were fishing poles sticking out from under the table. The cushioned benches, nailed to the floor on either side of the table, were made up like beds. _How many people live in this thing?_ All along the roof there ran a storage rack, like the wooden cubbies in her kindergarten classroom, and each compartment was bursting with things; clothes, food, tools, books, a house-worth of stuff.

No clock. Jo didn't mind. _What's the point of time anymore?_ She was content here, in this house-full camper, and she hadn't felt so at ease since she'd heard Lee screaming by the creek. There was a window just above the bed. The curtains were drawn, but the window itself was cracked, no more than an inch, but enough for the occasional blessing of a breeze. Shane would be here any moment to take her away. _He's probably looking for me by now._ She imagined him marching through the deadlocked cars, banging his fists on windows, asking, "You seen a girl walk by here, about yeah high, blonde hair, black t-shirt? No, well, if you do, tell her to get her ass back to the car."

Jo smiled at the imaginary scene. Then guilt fell over her. _He'll be worried_, she thought. _He'll think I'm dead like Rick._ She chewed on her bottom lip and turned her face to the breeze. _I wish I was dead like Rick, but then, who would bury me?_


	6. Carnations

"Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!"

-Genesis 19:17

Not more than fifteen minutes after Andrea left, the hatch in the RV ceiling swung open. Two, tennis-shoed feet appeared. They dangled in a beam of light. _First walkers, now aliens_, Jo thought, sitting up in bed. _What next?_ Two jean-clad legs came next. Then blonde hair, straight and fine, tapering off at a narrow waist. Shoulders. A head. The woman leapt over the last ladder rung and spun around. Her eyes, a softer shade of sea glass than Andrea's, widened.

"Oops, did I wake you up?" she said. "Just getting a refill." She held up a canteen. "Ignore me." Jo watched her walk to a cooler on the table. Water streamed into her canteen.

"You thirsty?" the young woman asked, looking over her shoulder and smiling. It'd been quite some time since Jo had spoken to someone her age. Growing up, she hadn't gotten along with other girls. They'd worn sleeveless summer dresses to church picnics and teased her long sleeved, potato sack dresses. They'd started rumors about her in high school, when she'd refused to shower after gym. _Papa was always so angry._ She'd had one friend. The girl had gone to college. _And I fucked her dad to put bread on the table. _Needless to say, the two of them had lost touch.

"No, I'm not thirsty," Jo said. The woman's canteen overflowed onto the floor.

"Shit," she said, whipping her head back around. She stopped the water with a twist of a knob. "Dale won't like that," she said, looking at the puddle at her feet. "We can't be wasteful." She rolled her eyes. Then, she caught Jo's blank expression and blushed. "Sorry, nervous habit, the talking. My sister, Andrea, she's out looking for your friends."

"I know," Jo said. "She told me. So, you're sisters?"

"Talk about an age gap, right," the woman chuckled. "She's even more insufferable because of it. Being that much older, she thinks she knows that much more. What about you? Got any sisters?"

"No," Jo said.

"Oh, lucky you."

"I've got a brother. He's fifteen." She winced. _Lee. _It was painful thinking about him.

"Your parents with you?" the young woman asked. Jo clenched the sheets in her fist. Her stomach heaved, but there was nothing left to expel. Noticing her reaction, the woman hurried on. "Sorry, I didn't...I forgot, you know, not to ask questions like that anymore. Not with so many people-"

"Dead," Jo said. "My parents are dead. Just me and my brother now."

"Same for me and Andrea. Least we've got that much, right? When I saw you passed out on the road, well, I was worried you didn't have anyone. I'm glad you do. People need to stick together when stuff like...like this happens."

Jo didn't say anything. Her heart hammered in her chest. It screamed _run, quick, before they find you._

"I'm Amy, by the way," Andrea's sister said. She crossed the camper and stuck out her hand.

"Jo."

"Well, Jo, I should get back up there," Amy said. Then she lowered her voice, mimicking someone Jo didn't know. "Gotta keep your eyes open."

"Mind if I come?" The camper seemed too stuffy now and the noise outside had changed. There was no more laughter. No honking horns, but the singing and sobbing continued. As did the praying and calling out. _Keep your eyes open. _Jo thought it was good advice. She dreaded sleep. _What dreams may come?_

"I guess so," Amy said, pursing her lips in the same manner as her sister. "Yeah, sure, why not? You good to climb?"

Jo nodded. She scooted to the edge of the bed and let her toes skim the floor. Her legs were stiff. She put her hand against the wall for support and stood. On her way to Amy, at the foot of the ladder, she took another sour apple from the cabinet left open by Andrea.

"You first," Amy said. Jo bit into the apple, holding it with her teeth to have the use of both hands, and then hefted herself up the first two rungs. There were only five more to go, but she had to pause. It took longer than she'd be proud to admit, but at last, Jo made it to the top. She slid onto the roof on her belly. There was a beach chair near the hatch, complete with umbrella. Jo crawled towards it to make room for Amy.

"Take the chair," Amy said, sitting cross-legged on the roof. She picked up a pair of black binoculars. Jo sunk into the beach chair. There wasn't much more to see from the top of the RV than was visible from the ground. Cars and cars and cars for miles. Atlanta still shone; a beacon, _a trap_. Jo didn't trust the lights.

"Someone told us that they're opening refugee camps in the city," amy said, looking through the binoculars. She offered them to Jo.

"No thanks." She could see plenty. "Refugee camps, you think?"

"Maybe." Amy shrugged. "That's what they do in movies when stuff like this happens."

"Yeah, but how often does it work out in the movies?" Jo rolled her sore shoulders. _Stop being such a pessimist_, she thought, seeing Amy's hopeful expression flicker. "There could be camps," she said, hastily.

"Maybe they're evacuating," Amy said. They both looked up at the empty, black sky. No stars. _The world's shutting down._

"Whatever they're doing," Jo said, "doesn't look like we're gonna find out for awhile. Did we move any while I was out?"

"Not an inch."

Silence filled in around them as they stared at the city. _We're refugees_, Jo realized. That's what it meant to leave your home, seeking safety elsewhere, and have nothing of your own anymore. _Lee._ Suddenly, she needed him. Her momentary wish to leave him scattered in the night air. _If I have to be a refugee, I don't want to be alone._

"Jo!" Shane's voice came from below. Jo leapt to her feet and flung her torso over the roof of the Rv. There he was, standing below her, looking angry as hell.

"Goddammit," he called up to her. "We've been looking for you for hours. What're you doing up there?"

"Hold on." Jo withdrew from the edge of the roof. She slid down the ladder, into the RV, and burst through the door. She practically crashed into Shane. He pulled her into his arms, smothering her against his chest.

"No more walks for you," he said, pushing her back, but keeping hold of her arms. "Jesus, you look like shit. I shouldn't have sent you off."

"Shut up," Jo said. "I'm fine. How's Lee? Does he know you found me?"

"He's alright." Shane dropped his hands. His eyes darted away from her.

"What?" Jo demanded.

"Nothing. He said some things, s'all. No need to repeat them."

"Before she could force him to repeat them, Andrea returned with two men. One of them was short, slouched, and bearded, with dark, thinning hair, and wearing an oil stained, white wife-beater. The other was an older man with a white beard, a floppy fishing hat on his head, dressed in a pale yellow, open buttoned, Hawaiian t-shirt.

"Dale," the older man said, extending his hand to Shane. "Glad Andrea found you."

"I appreciate you looking after her," Shane said.

"What would we be if we didn't look after each other? Monsters, that's what," Dale said, smiling. Shane wrapped his arm around Jo's waist.

"Well, hate to rush off, but we should get back to our-"

All along the road, conversation dropped. Every head turned up at the sound of engines, growing louder and louder. Then, lights in the sky, and propellers cutting through the black above.

"Helicopters!"Amy shouted from the roof. "Flying to the city."

No one needed to be told that. _Maybe they are evacuating_, Jo thought. Then. The screams reached them. She took a step back, the sound striking her like a freight train. Atlanta was screaming. The whole city, every single person. All of those on the road watched the helicopters sweep between the sky-scrapers.

"What's happening?" Andrea asked. "Amy, get down here."

Amy raised the binoculars to her eyes. "I can't see anything," she said.

"Amy!" Andrea marched into the camper. In seconds, she was on the roof with her sister. They stood shoulder to shoulder, silhouetted by headlights.

"There's an overlook somewhere around here," Shane said. "I'm gonna check it out." He left the road. Jo followed. "Not you," he said, without stopping or looking back at her. "Get back to the car."

"I'm going with-"

Shane broke into a run. Jo watched him breach the tree line. She couldn't catch up with him and she knew it. Couldn't_ even climb a seven rung ladder without getting dizzy._ If she followed, she'd lose herself in the woods.

"C'mon," Amy said, coming up beside her. "I'll walk you back. Your brother will be worried."

_No he won't_, Jo thought, but she went with Amy. Silently, Andrea flanked her other side. Jo walked between them, back to the squad car and to Lee, the city screaming at their backs. _Three refugees going nowhere._

* * *

><p>Fire rained down from the pitch-black sky. Amy and Andrea were pinpricks now, weaving their way through the cars, back to their people. Jo found her brother stretched out on the hood of the squad car, with his hands folded behind his head, looking up at the fire-flung sky.<p>

"Where's Lori?" Jo asked. Lee didn't turn his head, but he answered.

"Overlook," he muttered.

"The kid?"

Lee pointed to the shoulder of the road, where Carl and a blonde girl sat.

"Can I sit with you?" Jo asked. Her brother said nothing. _I'll take it as a yes._ She leaned against the hood.

"They're dropping napalm," he said. His words weren't necessarily for her, or for anyone. But hearing the sound of his voice, after so many hours of silence, was better than nothing. She wanted to reach out, clutch his hand for dear life, anything. _I can't_, she thought. _I can't do anything._ None of them could. Everyone on the road was watching the city burn. Where were they supposed to go now?

Lee took a joint from his pocket, lit up, and exhaled. He stared at Jo through a cloud of smoke, as if daring her to say something. She wasn't going to. Not now. Probably never again. _Old world rules no longer apply._ _I killed Mama. They're dropping napalm on Atlanta. _What did it matter if Lee got stoned on the hood of a squad car? _After all, it's the fucking end._

Lee slide off of the hood. "It's the fucking end," he said, before stalking away. Jo watched him lay in the grass not far from Carl and the girl. _Shane, where are you?_

An hour dragged by. Eventually, the screaming stopped and the helicopters left. Atlanta burned on. _There's no one left to put out the fires_, Jo thought. _They're all dead. _She felt numb. She knew it was true, but she couldn't feel it. Conversations broke out once more, at first as a burble, and then a roar. People were back in their cars, honking their horns, trying to break through the deadlock and go back the way they'd come. _Away from the silent, dead city._ The ones parked in the outer lane spun off of the road and drove through the grass.

"Sophia, Carl." Carol called the children back onto the road, and out of the path of fleeing refugees.

"Where's my mom?" Carl asked, sniffling. Lee wandered back to the car.

"She'll be back soon," Carol said. And a few minutes later, there they were. Carl spotted them first. He flew from Carol's arms and rushed to his mother, flinging his skinny arms around her waist when he reached her. Lori knelt to embrace him, but her eyes stayed fixed on Shane over the boy's shoulder.

Shane stopped at Carol's car and spoke through the open window to the man in the driver's seat. They seemed to come to some kind of agreement. Jo watched them, waiting.

"C'mon, get in," the man barked. _Carol's husband. _He had to be. Jo knew his type. Carol and the girl did as they were told.

"Well?" Jo said, when Shane finally joined them. Lee stared at the ground, but he was listening just as intently as his sister.

"We wait for the road to clear some," Shane said, running a hand through his hair. Wisps of black smoke blew towards them from Atlanta. _Ashes to ashes_.

"Then we go," Shane went on. "I talked to a few others, those people in the RV and-" He gestured to Carol's car.

"Where we going?" Jo asked. Shane looked from her to her brother. _Anywhere but here_, his eyes said.

"We should wait in the car," he said. Desperate to leave the road, people had begun to boil, making them reckless, dangerous. In silence, Jo and the others piled back into the car. Carl curled up on the backseat between Jo and Lee. Soon, he fell asleep, with his head drooping against Lee's shoulder. Either Lee didn't notice, or didn't care, or he'd fallen asleep as well. Jo couldn't see his face. Up front, Lori and Shane whispered heatedly at one another.

"My son..."

"We'll find a..."

"...not safe...out in the open."

"I'll take care of you. Don't worry."

Jo drifted in and out. She felt like they were perpetually waiting, but for what she wasn't sure. _We'll just drive_, she thought, her eyelids fluttering. _We'll drive forever, because there's nowhere to go. No salvation._


	7. Mockernut Hickory

**AN: **Longer chapter this time. Next chapter tomorrow. Read, review, enjoy.

**Coming next time**: Jo's first encounter with the Dixon brothers.

* * *

><p>"Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make my way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."<p>

-Isaiah 43: 18-19

Three days later...

Jo was woken by a child's shrill peal of laughter. Groaning, she rolled over in her sleeping bag, which stuck to her skin, and opened her eyes. Sunlight spilled into the tent. _Lee left the door unzipped, again._ He was never there in the morning. Their first night here, she'd followed him out at daybreak, down to the quarry. For hours, she'd spied on him from behind a cluster of shrubs. He hadn't done much. Just thrown stones into the water.

"Take the knife next time," she'd told him later that same night. Since the road, he hadn't spoken. Not to her. Not to anyone. Every day, he went to the quarry and threw stones at the water. Jo hadn't followed him again, but she'd asked Dale to keep an eye on him from atop the RV.

More laughter drifted into the tent. "Carl, wait up," Sophia giggled.

"Don't run ahead," Carol called after them.

Jo yanked the sleeping bag over her head, despite the building heat of day, and tried to ignore the sounds from outside. She couldn't. Pots and pans clanked together. Someone whistled tunelessly. Th RV's engine flared to life, whined for a minute, and then died. _Shut up_, Jo thought at them all.

Sleep was difficult to come by. The children thought they were safe here, Jo could tell by the way they'd started laughing again, but she was kept awake by the wind tearing through the trees, and the branches snapping in the dark. She dreamt of Ms. Miller roaming the woods, of Mama rotting in an abandoned house. _Wonder if the walkers got to her_, she thought, unable to remember if they'd closed the door behind them.

"You're going to miss breakfast," Amy said, leaning into the tent. "Morales made eggs."

"Powdered ones," Jo grumbled, burrowing deeper into the sleeping bag.

"They're not so bad, especially with hot sauce."

"In a minute," Jo said. Amy shook the end of her sleeping bag.

"If we're going to catch any fish," she said, "you've got to get a move on."

_Fishing, right. _Jo'd forgotten about their plans. She didn't look forward to the excursion, but her culinary skills were limited to freeze dried and microwavable. Electricity, however, was a thing of the past. _Someday I might need to feed Lee again_, she thought.

"Fine." Jo rose from the sleeping bag. Her hair fell in tangles around her shoulders. She didn't bother changing out of the jeans and t-shirt she'd fallen asleep in the night before. Dragging her feet through the dirt, she followed Amy to the campfire. Dale waved at them from the roof of the RV. Jim cursed under the propped hood.

"We don't have the goddamn parts," he shouted up to Dale. Jo and Amy, chuckling under her breath, strolled past. Morales greeted them at the fire. His wife, Miranda, handed them two aluminum plates, stacked with runny, powdered eggs.

"Morning girls," she said, smiling.

"Morning," amy chirped. Jo nodded. She sat on the log by the fire and began shoveling the eggs into her mouth. _The faster you eat, the less you taste. _To be fair, the eggs weren't so bad. It was hard eating anything these days. Halfway through her plate, Jo's stomach clenched. She set the eggs aside, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and got back on her feet.

"Where you going?" Amy asked.

"Meet you at the quarry," Jo said, before rushing off. She hurried away from the tents. In the three days they'd been here, their number had grown. People trickled in- on their own, with their families. _Nineteen refugees. _Jo didn't talk to the new-comers. If she had it her way, she wouldn't talk to anyone, but Shane and Amy were always at her back, pushing her to come with them, to do this, or that, or whatever it was they wanted to do out here in godforsaken nowhere. As for herself, she wanted to sit in the tent, stew in the heat and her nagging misery.

Jo found a secluded cluster of scraggly brush and wretched up the powdered eggs. Must_ be the guilt_, she told herself.

"Get it all out," Shane said, coming up behind her. Jo straightened up. Holding her stomach, she faced him.

"Powered eggs," she said, trying to smile, and then realizing that she couldn't. "No big deal."

"Didn't say it was." He rolled his shoulders. Jo noted the shadows under his eyes. He was taking on more responsibilities than anyone else in the group. _He can't sleep, either. Must be the guilt. No big deal._

"Saw Lee going to the quarry," Shane said. "How's he doing?"

"Jo shrugged and said, "Ask him."

"How you holding up, then?"

"Fine." She took a cigarette from the crushed pack in her pocket, noticing that she was almost out. _What then?_ She didn't want to think about it.

"Thought I might go out for a hunt," Shane said. Jo snorted in disbelief. "I could use your help."

"Got plans," she said, blowing smoke from the corner of her mouth.

"Hot date?" Shane teased, almost like old times. _But hollow. _Jo went along with it, for his sake.

"Yeah, the Asian boy's taking me to dinner and a movie," she said.

"What movie?"

"The one where a girl falls in love with a boy."

"Yeah, I've seen the previews." Shane glanced back to the camp, where Miranda and Lori were gathering the dirty, breakfast dishes and putting them in an old picnic basket of Dale's, to be taken to the quarry and washed. Morales' children, playing tic-tac-toe in the dirt, had taken Jo's place on the log by the fire. The Asian boy was helping hang wet laundry on the line hanging between two pine trees.

"They're good people," Shane said, serious again. "And the Asian boy, his name's Glenn. You could talk to him."

"What, you the apocalypse match-maker?"

"Don't get all smart," he said, rolling his eyes. "You're shutting yourself off, that's all."

Jo didn't want a lecture. She said, "Well, I'll make sure to come hold hands and sing campfire songs with all of y'all tonight. Kumbaya my Lord, and all that feel-good shit."

She stepped over the remains of her breakfast, her blonde ponytail whipping behind her, and left Shane standing alone. _I'm not here to make friends_, she thought, as she scouted out the dirt trail leading to the quarry. She spotted fresh footprints, _Amy's maybe, _and followed them to the trail. Stumbling over roots and cursing under her breath, she longed for the woods back home, for the trees she'd carved her initials into, the ones she'd fallen from a thousand times before she'd learned to climb.

Jo stopped at a mockernut hickory tree. _Amy's waiting for you. The fish are biting._ But she was caught by a sudden desire to climb, leave the ground and its dead. She jumped for a low hanging branch, her arms stretched to the sky. Huffing, she hefted herself up, and, leaning on the trunk for balance, stood. It was a suitable climbing tree, with sturdy limbs and thick, green leaves to conceal her. Jo went as high as she could, about thirty feet up, and then straddled a crooked limb. She doubled over, to press her chest and cheek to the gray, ridged bark. Birds chattered all around. They ruffled their feathers at her presence and swooped through the leaves. Dappled light shimmered on her arms. She couldn't see the ground.

_It's gone. No walkers. No refugee camp. No world._ Jo wondered how far the virus had spread. Were their people overseas, still, going about their day as usual, watching the news, and pitying those poor souls in the red quarantine splotches of the globe? _Are their lightbulbs still burning somewhere? Telephones still ringing? _No planes or helicopters had been seen since the night Atlanta burned. The sky was as dead. _If half the world were still doing fine, why haven't they come for us?_ _Either we've been abandoned, given up for dead, or it's all gone._

"Not all," she said, mimicking Shane's voice to the unimpressed birds. "There's the Asian boy and Amy." _There's Lee, a tent home, powdered eggs. Who needs cell phones or lightbulbs? Who needs mothers or gravestones?_ _Who needs fucking bluejays or sanity?_

Jo didn't make it the quarry that day. By the time she climbed down, night had begun to fall. Her back and legs ached from hours in the tree, but she didn't mind. At least it was a familiar pain. _Papa never found us in the trees._

"Where were you?" Amy asked, her arms crossed, when Jo sunk down beside her on the grass, by the fire. "I waited."

"Jo's a lone wolf," Shane said, an edge to his voice. "Don't got time for the likes of us." He sat with his back to the log and his long legs stretched towards the fire. Lori, sitting beside him, nudged him in the ribs.

"Drop it," she said. "Sometimes people need a little space to breathe."

"Well," Amy snapped. "_People_ shouldn't agree to plans if they're gonna ditch last minute."

"Fish'll be there tomorrow, right?" Jo said, distracted. She spotted Lee slipping into their tent. _Has he eaten? He's so thin, so..._She noticed something new; a tent had been raised in the once empty space beside theirs. Shabby and patched, it flapped in a passing, hot breeze. A man emerged. He kept his back to the rest of camp, strode to a beat-up, faded blue truck at the clearing's edge, reached through the open window, and pulled out a lumpy, black bag. Jo watched him sling the bag over his shoulder and, his head bowed, return to his tent.

"Oh yeah, you've got new neighbors," Shane said. Jo turned back to the fire. "Merle and Daryl Dixon. Brothers."

"I don't like them," Lori said, her eyes darting to the shabby tent, and her voice low.

"We talked about this, Lor." Shane put his hand over hers. "We need the man power."

Lori pulled back her hand and stood.

"If they have to stay," she said, "I don't want them around Carl." Then, she marched off, calling out for her son. Shane's eyes followed her across the clearing. With a sigh, he turned back to Jo and Amy.

"I'll help move your tent," he said to Jo. "If you don't feel comfortable sleeping next to-"

"I've met rough sorts before," she cut him off. "We'll be fine."

"Well, if you change your mind." Shane got to his feet. He smothered a yawn behind his hand, and then said, "I should hit the sack. Got second watch."

He left the fireside, but didn't go to his tent. Jo watched him stand outside of Lori's tent and talk to her through the canvas, until the door unzipped and he went inside.

"You think something's going on between them?" Amy asked, watching Shane as well.

"Her husband just died," Jo said, her voice flat. She couldn't bring herself to say _Rick._ "He was like Shane's brother, too. Whatever's between them, they're just trying to fill a void."

"What about you?"

"What 'bout me?" Jo picked up a twig and began snapping it into smaller and smaller pieces.

"You and your brother, well, I never see the two of you together. He doesn't talk to anyone."

"Yeah, well..." _Well what?_ She cast a sideways glance at Amy. Sweet, smiling Amy, who knew how to fish, loved her sister, and plowed through the darkness, holding out for miracles.

"Family's complicated," Jo said. She scooped up the little pile of twigs in her lap and tossed them into the fire. "I'm sorry for ditching you today." She stared into the flames. "I wasn't good at this people thing before everything went to shit. Guess I'm not any better now."

"You'll learn," Amy said, as she stood. "You got to. No one can survive on their own anymore. A lone wolf is a dead wolf." She took a few steps, but then, smiling again, looked back at Jo over her shoulder.

"Fishing tomorrow," she said. "We'll walk to the quarry together." Then, she joined her sister and Jim, sitting in lawn chairs by the camper. Shane hadn't emerged from Lori's tent. The children were being put to bed. Loneliness swept over Jo like black clouds blowing across the dead sky. She thought about taking Shane's advice and seeking out Glenn. He didn't have any family or friends. But what would she say. _Hey, I'm Jo. Want to be my end of the world friend?_ No, it was too absurd. Then, she considered joining Lee in their tent. Reaching out to him, making a break-through. Then, they could push their sleeping bags together and she'd tell him ghost stories like when he was little.

She couldn't. _I'm a lone wolf. Armored, choking, and terrified. _Jo stretched out on the ground, folded her hands under her head, and closed her eyes. She drifted to sleep and dreamt of wolves, of Ms. Miller leading a pack of them through the woods back home. Lee hid in a tree and chanted, "A lone wolf is a dead wolf," over and over, while the pack hunted her down.

* * *

><p>Jo trailed her hand through the cool, green water. The sun burned high in the sky. Wispy, white clouds fell apart in the unforgiving blue expanse. <em>Like cotton candy<em>, she thought, tilting her head back and looking at the sky. _Cotton candy from the county fair. Lee's sticky fingers in my hair. Forever ago._

"What're you thinking about?" Amy asked from the prow.

"Nothing," Jo said.

"You were almost smiling."

"Do you like cotton candy?" she asked.

"Never had it," Amy said. Dale's floppy, fishing hat kept falling into her eyes. She pushed it back yet again.

"Never?" Jo said. Amy shook her head and started reeling in her line. "Well, we'll have to find some."

Jo let her hair down, hoping it would provide a shield between her bare shoulders and the sun. She hadn't thought to bring the SPF 40, a glaring oversight, she now realized.

"I'll keep an eye out," Amy chuckled, as she lifted her hook from the water. The bait was gone, but there was no fish. Jo brought in her own line. No bait, no fish. She plucked a fat, wriggling worm from the tin pail of dirt in the bottom of the boat. The worms themselves didn't bother her. _God made worms and worms don't hurt._ It was getting them on the hook that she found a challenge. Lips pursed, eyes narrowed, she jabbed the hook at the worm, and the worm curled around her finger.

"I can't believe you've never been fishing before," Amy said, smirking and watching Jo's struggle from under the brim of Dale's hat.

"Coming from the girl who's never had cotton candy," Jo snapped. After another minute of no success, she flung the worm overboard. "I think I'll stick to foraging," she declared, defeated.

"Suit yourself." Amy cast out her line. Jo was done fishing, but she wasn't in a hurry to row back to shore. They were far out on the water. She could just see the bank and the pinprick people on it. Lee was one of them. She couldn't see any of their faces, but she knew which one was him- the little, dark dot, separate from all the rest.

"What happened to you guys?" Amy asked. "To him?"

Jo scooped up a handful of cool, green water and let it run through her fingers. Diamond droplets dripped from her fingertips.

"Why you want to know?" she asked, watching the ripples their boat made in the water.

"Well..." Amy paused.

"Out with it."

"You talked," she blurted. "In the camper, after you passed out. You kept saying..."

"What?" Jo asked. She pulled her hand from the water and wiped it dry on her jeans. Her body tensed. _What does she know? _Amy propped her fishing pole against the side of the boat and leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees.

"You asked who would bury your mother," she said.

"Well, she's dead. I told you that."

"Bashed his head in with a rock," Amy went on. "You said that, too. I get it. None of my business. I just think...I think you need to talk about it."

"Ain't nothing to talk about," Jo said.

"You're a bad liar."

"I killed our mom, alright," Jo snapped. "There, you happy? She was sick. She'd have died any way. It doesn't even matter. I mean, goddamn, look around. The world was fucked up before, but now it's...it's..." She kicked the tin pail. Dirt and worms flooded the bottom of the boat. "I mean, what's the point? What are we doing? Going fishing and singing around the campfire and...and..."Jo faltered.

"We're making do," Amy said.

"Well, what if I don't want to? What if I...?" Jo looked to the shore, to the dot, standing alone, that was her brother. "What if I don't deserve to be here?"

_Do what you have to. Do what you have to. But I didn't even try to get Mama out of the house. _If she'd just tried a little harder to convince Shane, or if she'd refused to leave. _I did it for Lee. _But that was a lie. A worm wriggled over her shoe. She shook it off and squashed it under her heel.

"It doesn't matter what you did," Amy said. "Or whether you deserve to be here or not, because you are here, like it or not, and you've got people who worry about you."

"Shane's always worried about me."

"I'm not talking about him." Amy's hook caught on the side of the boat. She yanked it from the wood. No fish. "Some days they just don't bite," she said.

"Wish the same was true of walkers." Jo spotted one now. It stumbled up high on the quarry rim. _How'd it get up there? _ She watched it slip and fall, fall, fall. It's clothes billowed. _A dress. A woman._ The walker hit the water. No ripples reached their boat.

"Think they can swim?" Amy asked. Jo took up an oar.

"Lets not find out," she said. Amy nodded. They rowed in silence. Andrea waited for them on the beach. With her canvas pants rolled up to the knee, she waded out to them.

"Any luck?" she asked, as she took hold of the prow, keeping it steady while Jo and Amy leapt overboard.

"Nothing," Amy said. The three of them guided the boat the rest of the way to shore.

"We're going to need more food soon," Andrea said. The boat scraped against rock. They gave it one last push onto the shore. Jo sat on a flat-topped rock to catch her breath, while Amy and Andrea discussed the group's dwindling supplies. She zoned out, scanning the beach for her brother. There he was, standing on a narrow strip of dirt between the water and the steep, quarry walls. For once, though, he wasn't alone. There was a man with him, who she didn't recognize. Jo squinted at them, trying to bring the man's face into focus. His hair was short and ash-colored in the white hot sunlight. He laughed at something Lee said.

"I'll talk to Shane tonight about getting together a-"

"Who's Lee talking to?" Jo interrupted Andrea mid-sentence. Andrea looked over her shoulder, spotted the man in question, and a look of repugnance crossed her face.

"Merle Dixon," she said.

"One of the new guys?" Amy said, looking now as well. "What's your brother talking to him for?" _Lee doesn't talk to anyone. _Jo knew that's what she meant.

"I'd watch out for him," Andrea said. "He's been a pain in the ass all day. Racist, junkie redneck if I've ever seen one, and I've seen plenty."

Jo took a step. _I'll be damned if Lee strikes up a friendship with the likes of that._ She'd seen plenty of Merle Dixon's type as well. They were the one who left bruises and called you a bitch. They were the ones who didn't feel guilty once they were finished with you and the ones more likely to spit on you than to pay you. Yes, she knew bad men when she saw them. It'd been part of the old job.

She took another step, but then stopped. Andrea and Amy had gone back to their conversation, as they unloaded the fishing gear. They didn't see Merle Dixon take something from his pocket and press it into Lee's hand, but Jo did. At least, she thought that she did. Merle Dixon turned his head and caught her eye. Grinning, he waved.

"You going to help or what?" Amy asked. Jo looked away from Merle, still uncertain about what, if anything, she'd just seen. _It was nothing_, she told herself. _Just a trick of the light bouncing off of the water._ Carrying the fishing pole, she trailed behind Amy and Andrea, back to camp. Jo wanted what she'd seen to be nothing, because if it was something, she'd have to confront her brother, and she was scared. She was terrified that when she looked into his eyes, she'd see all of the things she most wanted to forget.


	8. Black Alder

"Then the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of waters; and they became blood."

-Revelation 16:4

Amy was washing clothes in a river. She stood waist deep in the water, in a long dress that billowed in the quick current. Sleek, black wings swelled from her shoulder blades. Jo stood on the opposite bank. She shielded her eyes against the sun and called out to Amy. "Where are we?" Amy didn't look up from her task. She dipped a t-shirt into the river.

"Where am I?" Jo asked, cupping her hands around her mouth to propel the sound of her voice. Amy lifted her head, only she wasn't Amy anymore. _Mama? _Jo stepped into the river. The water tugged at her. What was Mama doing here? Jo barely recognized her. She was young, beautiful, and so very alive.

"I'm washing your clothes," Mama said. Her wings unfurled. They seemed to go on for miles. Black clouds rolled across the son. When Mama lifted the t-shirt from the water, it was drenched in blood. The water swirled red around Jo's ankles.

"What are you doing here?" Jo asked.

"You didn't bury me." Mama dunked the shirt back into the water, the blood.

Jo sat up, clutching her chest. She couldn't see anything, but not for a lack of light.

"Shine that damn thing somewhere else," she growled.

"Sorry," Glenn muttered, lowering his flashlight. He stood just outside of the tent. His eyes darted, under the tattered brim of a red, baseball cap, everywhere but Jo.

"Well, what do you want?" she demanded.

"T-Dog sent me. It's your turn on watch."

"Shit." Jo checked her watch and remembered it was broken. _Tomorrow, I toss it into the quarry. Let it sink._ "Am I late?" she asked. Glenn nodded.

"Shit," she repeated, scrambling out of the sleeping bag. Her jeans were tangled at the foot of the bag. Glenn's mouth dropped open, his eyes on her now. "You catching flies over there?" Jo snapped. Glenn closed his mouth and averted his gaze.

"I'll leave the light," he stammered, setting the flashlight on the ground, and then he retreated into the dark. As she tightened her belt, she glanced at Lee's side of the tent. His sleeping bag was empty. She was on second watch, which meant it had to be sometime after midnight. _Where the hell did he go?_ There wasn't time to do more than wonder. T-Dog was waiting.

_Lee's got the knife_, Jo thought, ducking out of the tent. Glenn was stamping out the fire. Other than him, there was little movement. Not even a breeze stirred through the trees. A calm seemed to have fallen over the camp. It reminded her of that impenetrable silence of the night all hell broke loose.

Jo shivered, though it was a warm night. She looked to the RV, where she could see T-Dog pacing the moonlit roof, with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Then, she went back into the tent, strode to Lee's side, and slid her hand under his pillow, knowing that's where he kept the knife when he didn't have it on him. _If it's here, I'll go look for him. If he took it with him...I bashed his head in with a rock. _Lee could defend himself.

The knife wasn't there, but something crinkled under her fingertips. Knowing that she shouldn't, Jo slid whatever it was out from under the pillow. She shined the flashlight on a cellophane, cigarette wrapper, which had been melted closed at the top. Inside of the makeshift baggie, were shards of what looked like glass. She sliced open the wrapper with her pinky nail and dumped the shards into her palm. The crystals caught the light. She held them close to her face. _Come to think of it, looks more like ice than...ice...glass..._

Jo clenched her fist around the crystal meth, crushing it into a fine, white powder. She thought back to earlier in the afternoon, when she'd watched Merle Dixon and Lee talking together by the quarry. He had put something into her brother's hand. _Fucking crystal meth. Fucking Merle Dixon._ Blood pounded in her ears. She forgot that T-Dog was waiting, about where they were, about the walkers and Mama washing bloody clothes in a dream river. Red, hot, and raging fury spread under her skin.

Jo stormed out of the tent, her eyes sparking in the dark. There was no plan. No rational thought. Her heart hammered in outrage. _Fucking Merle Dixon. Fucking Merle Dixon._ She didn't even know the man, but right then, she was hell-bent on choking him to death.

Merle's brother sat outside of the tent, sharpening a busse combat knife on a rock. He looked up from his task and narrowed his eyes at Jo, marching up to him.

"What you-?" He started to ask. Jo didn't so much as look at him. She strode past, kicking up a cloud of dust with her heels. "Bitch, you can't go in there!" Daryl leapt to his feet, but she had already ripped back the zipper of the tent entrance. There was Merle, passed out on his back, with his mouth hanging open, snoring. The sight of him twisted her guts. Without making any conscious decision, Jo flung the flashlight at the sleeping man. There was the crack of bone and Merle Dixon reared up, swinging his fists. _Bullseye_, she thought, pleased with the blood spouting from his nose.

"You motherfucker," Jo screamed, flinging the handful of meth powder at his face.

"Morning to you, too, sweetheart," Merle said, wiping his nose. Jo plowed into the tent. She drew back her foot and slammed it into his side. She meant to kick him again, but he caught her ankle and pulled her down. Her chin hit the ground. Then, Merle Dixon was on top of her. She thrashed under him and beat her fists against his back. Grunting, he grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the ground.

"Easy now, girl," he said. Jo spit in his face. Merle laughed.

"What the hell's going on?" Daryl demanded, standing in the open doorway and staring down at the wrestling pair. Merle glanced over his shoulder, at his brother, and Jo took advantage of his moment of distraction. She wrenched free her hands and, channeling all of her fury, whipped her fist against the side of his face. He toppled off of her.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she barked. "Giving my brother meth?" She got back to her feet. Merle looked up at her for a second, his expression blank, and then he laughed again.

"I don't _give_ no one nothing," he said, spitting out a glob of blood at her feet. "Me and your brother made a fair bargain. If he done changed his mind-"

"He's fifteen, you son of a bitch!"

"So?" Merle said. "Kid's having a rough time. I's just trying to help him out a little. More than you'v done for him, judging by what I heard."

"You don't know shit," Jo snapped. She took a step towards him. So did Daryl, with the knife still in his hand.

"I wouldn't if I were you," Daryl growled. Jo glared at the both of them. She clenched her fists and her nails cut into her palms. _Bash their redneck heads in with a rock. _But she was out-numbered and weaponless. Her blood still boiled, but the fire in her head had died down enough for common sense to trickle back in.

"Stay away from my brother," she said, picking up the flashlight she'd thrown. She stepped over Merle's splayed legs and shouldered past his brother. Lori was right about them. These Dixon boys were dirt. Plain and simple. Jo was ducking out of their tent, when Merle spoke again.

"Don't know where you get off acting all high and mighty," he said. "Given that your a whore and all."

Jo stopped dead in her tracks, with her back turned to the Dixon brothers.

"Oh yeah, sugar tits," Merle chuckled. "Your bro had lots of real interesting things to say. Now, I ain't got no cash, but I'm sure we could work out some kind of a-"

Jo flung herself at Merle before either of the brothers had time to so much as blink. She fell into a red haze, a writhing tangle of limbs, an abyss of blind fury. Out-numbered. Weaponless. She didn't give a damn, because it felt good letting go. She was pissed and it wasn't even about Merle Dixon anymore. She'd been pissed for as long as she could remember. The punched she threw at him, she was throwing at everyone. _Papa for hurting us. Mama for getting sick, for being weak. Rick for fucking dying. The walkers for fucking existing. God for doing fucking nothing._

Daryl caught her around the waist and lifted her into the air, off of his brother. Merle's nose gushed blood. He lay there, laughing and bleeding, while Daryl half-dragged, half-carried her out of their tent.

"Crazy bitch," he huffed, dumping her onto the ground. JO landed in a heap. Breathing hard, she got back to her feet.

"Go on, get," Daryl said. Jo glared at him for a moment.

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything." Shane emerged from the woods behind the tent. He froze under Jo's and Daryl's eyes, gleaming in the dark, watching him."What's going on?" he asked.

"Nothing," Jo snapped. She threw one last, threatening glance in Daryl Dixon's direction, and then spun on her heels and stomped away. Shane followed her back to her tent.

Once inside, he asked again, "What was that all about?"

"Nothing," Jo muttered. She sat down and picked at a loose thread in the lining of her sleeping bag.

"Don't lie to me girl," Shane said. "It ain't nothing if you're picking a fight with the Dixons in the middle of the night. Ain't you supposed to be on watch?"

_T-Dog, shit._ Jo moved to stand, but gave up halfway through the motion. With her rage dissipated, the pain began to surface.

"Did he hit you?" Shane asked, daring her with his eyes to lie to him.

"Merle," she said. Shane reached for his holstered gun, but she hurried on. "Hold up, I went after him, alright. Don't go shooting anyone."

"Why would you do a stupid thing like that?" Shane said, dropping his hand to his side. Before she could answer, Lee entered the tent. He stopped just inside, caught like a deer in the headlights.

"I need to talk to my brother," Jo said. Shane raised an eyebrow at her. "In private," she added.

"I'm not done with you," Shane said, but he left them alone all the same. Lee didn't move from the doorway. Jo didn't look up at him. Without Shane, there was only heavy, tense silence. After a minute, though, Lee spoke.

"You found the meth," he said.

"Yeah," Jo said. Finally, she looked up at him. _What were you thinking, _she wanted to scream at him, but her brawl with Merle had left her exhausted. Clutching her aching ribs and gritting her teeth, she stood.

"I don't want you talking to the Dixons anymore," she said.

"You ain't my mother," Lee spat back. _Done more for him then you have_. Jo heard Merle Dixon's voice in her head. _He doesn't know anything. None of them know a goddamn thing about what I've done or why I did it._ She was sick of walking on eggshells around Lee. She was sick of his accusing eyes. Right then, she was sick of him. Jo slapped her brother across the face. Lee's head snapped to the side.

"I see you with them again," she said, her voice cold. "We're leaving." Then, she left the tent. T-Dog was still waiting. _You shouldn't have done that_, she thought, as she marched across the silent camp. _He was asking for it. Fucking meth. What's he thinking?_ Still, by the time she reached the RV, she was heavy with regret. Really, she knew what Lee was thinking. She knew Merle Dixon was right. _I'm failing him. I'm losing my brother._ Jo also knew that something would have to be done. Tomorrow, she'd have to suck it up, put aside her own fear, and talk to Lee. _He deserves that much and you know it. _But she didn't want to know it. She wanted to be angry. It was easier that way.


	9. Butterfly Weed

"When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom."

-Proverbs 11:2

The grass was damp and springy beneath Jo's bare feet. Overhead, they sky was steel gray for miles and miles. It had rained all morning. For once, they weren't assaulted by the stench of death, blown in from Atlanta on the dry, summer wind. Lee had been sleeping when she'd crawled into her sleeping bag at the break of dawn, but soon he'd woken and slipped out of the tent. She'd stayed in her sleeping bag, even though she hadn't slept after her watch, and listened to the patter of raindrops on the tent canvas. One of the songs Papa liked to sing got stuck in her head. _When the cloud is rolling over, thunder striking me, it's as bright as lightning, and I wonder why I couldn't see that it's always good, and when the flood is gone we still remain._

Now, sitting by the fire pit, she still couldn't beat the song from her brain. It played on and on and on. _And when the flood is gone we still remain. _By the camper, where they were huddled together, Amy and Andrea were bickering. They had been all morning. Jo couldn't hear them from across camp.

"What's up with them?" she asked, when Shane plopped down beside her.

"Andrea volunteered for the supply run," he said. "Amy's not too happy about it. Can't say I blame her."

"Where they going?"

"Atlanta," Shane said.

"Who all's going?"

Shane counted them off on his fingers, one by one. "Jacqui, T-Dog, Morales, Glenn, and Merle Dixon."

"Merle." Jo whipped her head around to look at him. She was certain she hadn't heard him right. At the very name, Merle Dixon, her body protested. She grimaced at a sharp pang in her ribs. She hadn't bothered looking at the damage, yet. _I don't need too. I can feel it well enough._

"I asked him to go," Shane said. Bewildered, she gaped at him. Then, she narrowed her eyes. _What's he up to?_ She waited for him to explain, knowing that if she glared at him long enough, he would eventually. And he did.

"I knew getting you to tell me what happened last night would be harder than pulling teeth," Shane said. "So, I asked Merle instead. I know, Jolene. I know why you went after him, which was stupid thing to do-"

"What? I was supposed to do nothing?" Jo said, shifting her glare to the dirt.

"No, you're supposed to come to me."

"Don't use your stern voice with me," she said. "Me and Lee, we ain't your problem. I'm not gonna come running to you every time I fall down and scrape my knee. You're not my..." She trailed off. What had Lee said to her last night, and so many times before that? _You're not my mother. _Shane wasn't her father. _We don't have parents._ She looked to Shane again. His shoulders sagged like they never had before. _He looks beat._ He looked tired and desperate. She flushed, suddenly full of guilt for losing her temper with him. After all, he'd gotten them out of the house. _He did what had to be done. _He'd lost his best friend, yet here he was, doing his best to hold them all afloat.

"I'm sorry," Jo muttered.

"I care about you,"Shane grunted. "And Lee. I have since the day I met you."

"I know. He knows, too." _I hope he does_, she thought. _I hope there's even just a little love left in him. _Uncomfortable now, and not used to sentimental moments, Jo changed the subject. "So, why did you ask Merle Dixon to go on the supply run?"

"Thought you could use some time to cool off," Shane said. "Look, I don't like them, either, but we need them. I can't protect everyone by myself. The Dixons can fight. They can hunt and, god knows, that's not a blessing we should turn away. Or do you really thing that you and Amy can keep us fed on fish all year?"

"No," Jo admitted, grinning despite herself. "Turns out, I'm no great fisherman."

Shane chuckled. They were quiet for a minute. Jo inspected her bruised knuckles. She didn't regret going after Merle Dixon, but she couldn't deny the validity of Shane's point, either. The children were sitting with Carol and Lori, doing school work. She watched Carl purse his lips and write something in a yellow notepad. It was harder each day to ignore the rest of the group. She lived with them now. She bumped into them everywhere she went. The threat she'd made to Lee, about leaving, was an empty one. _Where would we go? _Without Shane, without the group, she had no way of taking care of her brother. _I can't even catch a fish._

The RV door slammed behind Amy. Andrea stared at it for awhile, before joining the other volunteers, waiting at the cars, for the supply run. Merle Dixon caught Jo's eye, as he climbed into the car. He flashed her a cocky smile. She turned away, heard the engine rev, and only looked back to see the car wheeling out of the clearing.

"Will you play nice?" Shane asked her. Jo sighed.

"I'll try," she said. "But I ain't making any promises."

"Fair enough."

* * *

><p>Amy refused to leave the camper.<p>

"How's she doing?" Jo called up to Dale, as she climbed the ladder to the RV roof. He gave her hand up when she reached the top rung.

"About the same," he said, frowning.

"Have you been able to talk to her any?"

Dale shook his head. _She'll be alright_, Jo thought. _Soon as Andrea's back._ The supply run group hadn't been gone more than five hours. In the wake of their departure, a solemn mood had fallen over the camp. Jo took in the circle of tents. She spotted Morales children, sulking in the shade of an oak tree, with their mother nearby. An unanswered question hung in the air. _Will they come back?_

"Glenn knows his way around the city," Dale said, in an attempt to reassure the both of them. Jo didn't feel she needed any reassuring. _I don't care about any of them. _It was a lie. Despite herself, she did care. _But only a little. _Another lie.

"And I gave Andrea the gun," Dale went on.

"Does she know how to use it?" Jo asked. Dale's brow furrowed under his floppy, fishing hat. She wondered if even he knew how to use a gun. They weren't soldiers. Apart from Shane, she doubted that any of them had weapons training.

The RV was parked at the edge of the cliff, overlooking the quarry below. Jo looked down the long, rocky drop to the water. Heat shimmered on the air. Her sweat drenched tank top clung to her.

"I miss air conditioning," she said, fanning herself with her hand. Dale chuckled. "What do you miss?" she asked, turning to him. He thought about it for a minute.

"I try not to think about it," he said. "This is the world now. Even without the modern conveniences, it's beautiful, isn't it?"

Jo looked out at the sunlit water again. _Yes, it's beautiful._ But that didn't change the face that she was sweaty and disgusting. _When was the last time I took a bath?_

"I'm gonna go for a swim," she said. "Tell Amy, if she ever come outta there."

"I'll pass on the message," Dale said, smiling. Jo slid back down the ladder and landed in the dust. She found the path to the quarry with ease. As she walked, at a leisurely pace, down the slope, she realized how familiar this place was becoming. _Almost like home_.She thought about what Shane had said earlier that morning, about them needing the Dixons. Jo didn't like them, but if they were necessary for protecting this place, _and protecting Lee_, than she'd have to swallow her pride. _I don't want to leave here. _The thought frightened her. She pushed it back as she approached the water's edge. _Don't get attached_, she told herself.

Jo scanned the shore, double checking that she was alone, and stripped down to her underwear. She set her clothes on a boulder, to keep them free of sand, and waded out into the cool, green water. Waist deep, she freed her tangled, greasy hair from its bun. Then, filling her lungs with air first, she went under and sunk to the sandy bottom. All sound fell away. She stayed under for as long as she could, before breaking the surface again with a splash. For awhile, she floated on her back. If she stayed still enough, the fish came to nibble her toes. It tickled. She allowed herself to forget about Mama, about the others at camp and the group in Atlanta, about the fucking Dixons, and about her brother. The water washed them all away. She pretended that she was the only person in the world.

She stayed in the water until she couldn't pretend anymore. Jo waded back to shore. She wasn't alone anymore. Daryl Dixon sat nearby, in the sand, with four squirrels arrayed in front of him and one, half skinned, in his lap. As she walked to her clothes, he glanced up and their eyes met. He looked down at her bruised ribs and then quickly turned his attention back to his task. Jo slid back into her clothes, with her back turned to him. Dressed, she turned around. _Try to play nice_, Shane had said. _Fine, I'll try_, Jo thought, though she'd never been very good at playing nice.

"You should get 'em wet first," she said, standing over him. Daryl didn't speak or look up. "Or not." Still nothing. Sighing heavily, she sat down in front of him and pulled one of the squirrels towards her. "Give me the knife," she said, holding out her hand, palm up and open.

"I don't need no crazy bitch telling me how to skin a squirrel," he said, jabbing his knife into the dead animal in his lap.

"Just trying to help," Jo said.

"Well, don't."

She watched him in silence for a minute. _Swallow you pride. Don't hit him._ But she couldn't watch him butcher the squirrel any longer.

"Oh, just give me that," she snapped, reaching out and taking the knife from his hand before he had time to react. And before he could complain, she went to work. Jo flipped the squirrel before her onto its back and in one, practiced motion, she made an inch and half incision under the tail and small cuts at the back of its legs. Then, she set the knife down, and stuck her fingers in the holes, to push the muscle against the skin. She stripped the skin from the legs, then put the tail under the heel of her boot, and pulled off the rest of the hide. The whole process had taken her less than five minutes.

Holding up the perfectly skinned squirrel, she said, "See, that's how it's done." Daryl glowered at her. He took back his knife and went back to working on the squirrel in his lap the same way he'd been doing it before.

"Suit yourself," Jo snapped. _I tried._ She got to her feet and wiped the sand from her jeans, but then, as she was moving to leave, he spoke.

"You hunt?" he grunted.

"My dad did," Jo said. "We just did everything else. The skinning, the cooking, you know."

"That how your daddy taught you to skin an animal?"

"No." She winced. "My mama did."

Daryl looked back down. Jo took it as a sign that the conversation was over, for which she was glad. She set off back to camp. It was past time to confront Lee. Her stomach clenched at the thought. _I really shouldn't have slapped him._ Where the sandy shore turned into forest dirt, she paused to look over her shoulder at Daryl Dixon. She smiled, watching him hold the squirrel down by the tail with the heel of his boot, the way she'd showed him. _The way Mama showed me, a long, long time ago. _


	10. Creeping Yellowcress

**AN: **Well, I thought it was past time for another walker attack...Read, review, enjoy :)

**Preview: **Jo and Lee finally talk. Rick's return. Much more Daryl.

* * *

><p>"And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth."<p>

-1 Samuel 17:49

Jo hadn't confronted her brother. She'd taken a walk in the woods, even though she'd known the whole time what a stupid idea it was. There hadn't been any walkers, but the smallest noises had made her jump out of her skin. She tumbled out of the woods, brambles in her hair, and made it halfway to their tent before stopping dead in her tracks. _I'm terrible at this_, she thought, turning around and making her way to the clothes line instead, where Amy was hanging the wash. Lee would still be here in another hour. _Not necessarily_, a nasty, little voice whispered from the back of her head.

She nodded at Shane, turning squirrels on a makeshift spit over the fire, as she passed him.

"Where you been?" he called after her. Jo didn't answer. She already knew how he'd disapprove of her going off on her own, without a weapon, and she'd had enough lectures for one day. When she reached the clothes line, she cleared her throat to announce herself. Amy glanced up, flashed a weak smile, and bent her head again.

"Looks like we're having squirrel for dinner," Jo said, doing her best to sound natural, but her words came out stiff all the same. That damn question still hung in the air. _Will they come back?_ "Good thing too," she went on. "I was getting tired of canned shit."

Amy nodded, but she wasn't paying attention. She picked up one of Andrea's shirts from the pile of wet laundry at her feet and held it for a moment. Tears sparkled in the corners of her eyes. Jo shuffled her feet. When people cried, instinct told her to get the hell out of dodge. Even Lee. _Suck it up_, she always told him. _Don't be a baby._ She took a step back, but stopped. She'd already turned away from her brother, yet again, and now she was going to abandon Amy. _I keep this up and I won't have anyone left_, she thought, chewing her bottom lip.

"It's gonna be okay," Jo said. She walked to Amy, took the shirt from her hands, and pinned it on the line. "She'll appreciate the clean clothes when she gets back."

"What if she doesn't-?"

"She will." Jo gave Amy a stern look. "But until she does, you gotta go on like normal. Don't lock yourself up in a tower, princess."

Amy let out a shaky laugh. She touched Andrea's shirt, then drew back her hand and bent over for another piece of laundry.

"So, squirrel," she said. "I've never had it."

"I bet you were one of those vegetable eaters before all this," Jo said, rolling her eyes.

"A vegetarian?" Amy chuckled. "No, but our meat usually came in packages. Unless it was fish."

It didn't take them long to finish hanging the wet laundry. Together, they joined Shane at the fire. Amy's expression was still grave, but she relaxed her shoulder and sat knee to knee beside Jo.

"Almost done," Shane said, turning the meat.

"Good. I'm starving," Jo said, stretching out her legs. She glanced to their tent. Still no sign of Lee. _He always loved squirrel _It had never been Jo's favorite, but for the first time in a week, she felt hungry, not nauseous Her stomach gave a mighty growl.

"My birthday's coming up," Amy announced, out of nowhere. The word _birthday_ seemed foreign. _I forgot things like that existed. It hasn't even been that long since the world ended._ But it hadn't ended. Not really. Day by day, she was beginning to realize that.

"Andrea always missed my birthday," Amy continued. She drew swirls in the dirt with her finger. "I hope she makes it back in time for this one. Is that silly?"

"No," Jo and Shane said together. Jo bumped her shoulder against Amy's.

"C'mon, what're we gonna do to celebrate?" she asked. "Baking a cake might be hard without an oven, but we've got all the ingredients for some mighty fine mud pies."

"Me and Carl'll bring the frog legs," Shane added, grinning. Amy curled her lip back and made a sound of disgust.

"I'm drawing the line at squirrel," she said, eyeing the cooked vermin as Shane slid them from the charred spit. Dale, Jim, Lori and Carl joined them. Amy and Shane passed around heaping plates of squirrel to everyone in the circle. As they ate, they continued planning Amy's birthday celebration, the others joining in. Their suggestions became more and more extravagant, until Shane proposed an idea that made Lori clamp her hands over Carl's ears.

Jo couldn't remember a time she'd laughed so hard, but every once in awhile, she looked at their tent. Inside, a kerosene lamp burned. _I should talk to him_, she thought, every time she caught the light of the lamp with the corner of her eye, but she stayed by the fire, still too scared to do what needed to be done.

* * *

><p>"You wanna go fishing today?" Jo asked. She and Amy were sitting in a hammock, which Dale had strung up between two trees. Even in the shade, it was boiling hot. The others should have returned from Atlanta that morning, but it was past noon now, and there hadn't been any sign of them. Amy wasn't her usual chatty self. All day, Jo had put forth her best efforts to draw just a word or two from her.<p>

"Not today," Amy said, kicking her heels into the dirt and swinging them back.

"We could go foraging. I've seen some edible mushrooms around."

"You can go."

Jo sighed. Her efforts were all in vain. She was running out of ideas. _If I could just take her mind off of Andrea for a little while. _But what was there for them to do? She didn't know what girls did together before the apocalypse, and she certainly didn't know what they were supposed to do these days.

Jo, desperate as she was, opened her mouth to suggest they make daisy chains. _We have to do something, for fuck-sake._ Before she could get out any words, Lori hurried over to them. Her cheeks were flushed and her long, dark hair hung loose down her back.

"You got a leaf in your hair," Jo said.

"What?" Lori, who'd been looking over her shoulder, turned her head to the girls in the hammock.

"I said, you've got a leaf in your hair."

"Oh, thanks." Lori pulled her hair over her shoulder and plucked out the leaf. Her eyes kept darting to the woods on the other side of camp. "Mind looking after Carl for me today?" she asked. "Shane was supposed to take him frog catching, but since the others aren't back..." She glanced at Amy and stopped talking.

"I can take him frog catching," Jo said quickly, to fill the awkward silence. _Where are they?_ "If you don't mind."

Lori considered the offer for a moment. They hardly knew each other. Before the dead started walking, Jo had refused to meet Rick's family, though he'd never stopped inviting her and Lee over for dinner. _Come live with us, you and Lee_. She remembered the day he'd said that, after Mama got sick. _We ain't a charity case, _she'd told him. She'd trusted Rick. She'd even loved him, but he wasn't her blood. Looking up at Lori, she thought, _they're all that's left of him. _

"Yeah, that's fine," Lori said. "I'll go tell him." Jo watched her duck into her tent, and then rounded on Amy.

"You're coming with us," she said.

"I'd rather stay here and-"

"I wasn't asking what you wanted to do. You're coming."

"Jo, I don't want to-"

"What? You want to sit here and mope all day? Cuz that ain't gonna bring Andrea back any faster."She leaned against Amy's shoulder and softened her voice. "C'mon, I bet you've never been frog catching before and I'll need your help with Carl. Don't make the poor kid spend the whole day alone with me."

Amy rolled her eyes, but the corner of her lips lifted into a half-smile.

"Alright," she said. "For Carl's sake."

They waited for Lori and Carl to emerge from their tent, before getting off of the hammock. It swung gently against the back of their legs while Lori crossed the camp, with Carl dragging his feet behind her. _Great, _Jo thought, _I get saddled with two miserable people today._

"You behave," Lori said, crouching down to be on eye-level with her son. She ruffled his hair, and then turned to the girls. "Thanks for this."

"No problem," Jo said. Amy smiled down at Carl. Once Lori had gone, Jo fetched one of Dale's buckets from outside of the RV, and together, they set off along the forest trail. No one spoke until they were a good bit from camp. Both Amy's and Carl's expressions were sullen.

"You ever been frog catching before?" Jo asked the boy. She hadn't said more than two words to Carl since he'd shown up with his mother on her doorstep. _I never was good with kids._ _Lee's proof of that._ She found it difficult to look at Carl. He had his father's eyes.

"I've caught a frog," he said, narrowing his eyes stubbornly.

"You hear that?" Jo said, elbowing Amy in the ribs. "We got ourselves an expert."

Amy gave a forced laugh. Carl fell back to walking behind them. Jo couldn't think of anything else to say. The air was so heavy. She swung the bucket in her hand as they strolled down the path. _Wonder if Lee's at the quarry._ He probably was. _Wonder if he remembers the day Shane taught us how to catch frogs._ He probably didn't. He'd only been seven years old.

Halfway to the quarry, Jo stopped. Carl bumped into her back.

"What is-?" Amy began to ask, turning to look back at them. Jo held her finger to her lips. _Something's not right. _Then it hit her. The birds had stopped singing. She reached down to get her knife from her boot, where she always kept it, before remembering that Lee had it. _Stupid, fucking stupid_, she cursed herself. How could she have forgotten to bring a weapon? She looked from Amy to Carl. A twig snapped to their right. Amy gave a startled yelp and moved closer to Jo and the boy.

"We need to go back," Jo hissed. She grabbed hold of Carl's collar and pushed him back the way they'd come, but they hadn't gone more than five steps when two walkers stumbled out of the woods and into the path, blocking their way. Jo pushed Carl behind her and stood in front of him and Amy. The walkers, snarling, ambled towards them. Her mind working frantically, she watched them get closer and closer. She scanned the area around them for anything useful. _I bashed his head in with a rock. A big, sharp rock._

Then Carl screamed. Jo spun around and collided with a third walker, its mouth wide open and going for her throat. Amy grabbed a fistful of the walker's long, gray hair, trying to stop it, but its scalp slid right off. Jo barely managed to put up her hands in time, as her and the walker fell to the ground. She wrapped her hands around its neck, putting all of her energy into holding back that bloody, rotting mouth. _I'm gonna die_, she thought, when her arms began to shake. But then the walker rolled off of her. Or rather, it was kicked off of her by Amy and Carl.

"Keep back," Jo cried, pulling at the hem of Carl's pants and yanking him back just before the walker took a bite of his leg. The other two would be on them, too, soon. Jo grabbed the nearest thing she could find; a fallen tree branch, about two inches around and three feet long. Like the night all hell had broken loose, she shut off her brain and charged the walker, that was still going after Amy now. She brought the branch crashing down on its head. The walker stumbled back, momentarily dazed.

"Go," Jo screamed at Amy, pushing her towards Carl.

"I can't leave!"

"Get him to camp. Get help. I'll distract them long enough for-" The third walker came at them again. Jo swung the branch at it. She prodded it in the chest, keeping it at bay. "Go!" she screamed again. Amy took Carl's hand. She threw one last glance at Jo, before the two of them set off running.

"Into the woods," Jo yelled after them. Carl looked over his shoulder as Amy dragged him off the path and into the trees, to avoid the two walkers shuffling towards Jo. His eyes met hers. _Rick's eyes. _Then they disappeared into the trees. Jo didn't have anymore time for thinking. The other two walkers lifted their heads, having caught Amy's and Carl's scent on a breeze. They veered to the side of the road.

"Hey!" Jo yelled, trying to regain their attention, while also holding back the third one. "Over here, you ugly sons of bitches!"The walkers looked at her. One of them, a man, was missing half of his face. For a second, she thought she might be sick. _No time. No time. _"Over here, over here," she kept screaming, drawing the walkers towards her. When they were about four feet away, she threw the branch in her hand at the third walker as hard as she could. Then, she spun on her heels and ran towards the quarry, glancing over her shoulder from time to time.

They were to close. She couldn't outrun them. _Even if I could, I can't run forever, either. _She skidded to a stop at the mockernut hickory tree she'd climbed the other day. Jo leapt. Her fingers brushed the lowest branch, but didn't catch. She could hear the walkers at her back. She leapt again. This time she caught the branch and swung her legs up. The half-faced walker curled its hand around her ankle. Hanging over the branch, she reared back her leg and kicked it in the neck.

Jo didn't look back down until she was quite high up. The three walkers were gathered below. Growling and grunting, they clawed at the tree trunk. She pressed herself flat against the branch she was perched on and wrapped her arms around it. She was stuck, but she wasn't dead. A wave of happiness broke over her. She laughed. The sound became more and more hysterical, but she didn't stop. _I've lost my fucking mind. _The thought only made her laugh harder. _But hey, at least I'm alive._


	11. Spotted Deadnettle

"Then Jesus shouted, 'Lazarus, come out!' And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in grave clothes, his face wrapped in a head cloth. Jesus told them, 'Unwrap him and let him go!"

-John 11: 43-44

_ Where the hell are they?_ Jo felt like she'd been stuck in the tree for hours, though it couldn't have been more than ten minutes. _Please, please, let them have made it back to camp._ She wasn't laughing anymore. If anything had happened to Amy...to Rick's son..._I'll add it to the list of things I can't forgive myself for._ She glared at the walkers, still clawing at the tree trunk and snapping their jaws at her. They weren't people. It hadn't taken her very long to realize that. When she looked at them, no pity stirred in her heart. _The living are enough to worry about. _The walkers disgusted her. To distract herself, while she waited for rescue, Jo flicked twigs at them from up high. _Ten points if you get an eye._

The half-faced walker fell suddenly to the ground. Jo gaped. _Did I do that with a twig? _No, she spotted the arrow on the walker's head. She hadn't even seen it coming, but the second and third she did. The remaining walkers crumpled. Jo stayed where she was, when Daryl Dixon appeared from the trees, with his crossbow still raised. He approached the walkers, kicked the half-faced one in the back, and then looked to Jo in the tree.

"You can come down now," he called up to her. Jo wasn't sure if she wanted to come down. She felt her cheeks going red. _Rescued by goddamn Daryl Dixon. _She remembered that stupid movie she'd watched a slumber party, one of the few she'd gone to. It'd been about some long-haired princess, locked up in a tower, and waiting for a prince to save her. Jo'd hated that move and the stupid, blonde princess. _It don't make no sense_, she'd said to the simpering little girls at the party. _Why doesn't she just climb down? Why's she just sitting up there, waiting and crying? _The world was a stranger place than it had ever been, but some things would never change. Jo was no princess and Daryl Dixon certainly wasn't her prince.

Reluctantly, she joined him on the ground. Her foot slipped on one of the walkers' arms. She flung out her hands to break her fall, but collided into Daryl Dixon instead of the ground. The crossbow slammed into her face. Jo stumbled back, clutching her nose. It wasn't bleeding, but it hurt like hell. Daryl smirked at her.

"Ain't you gonna say thanks," he said.

"I had everything under control," she snapped, lowering her hands from her face. Daryl glanced at the pile of walkers and snorted.

"Yeah, looked like it," he said. Jo's cheeks went a darker shade of red. "What you doing out here, any way?"

"None of your business."

Daryl shrugged. He swung his crossbow over his shoulder and turned away from her, making his way to camp. Jo glowered at his back for a minute, sighed, and jogged to catch up with him. _Play nice. _Shane's voice rang in her head.

"Thanks," she huffed, falling into step beside him. Daryl didn't say anything. The walked in silence, but just when she thought all conversation had ended, he spoke again.

"Ain't you got a knife or something?" he asked, his eyes roaming from her head to her feet.

"No," she admitted.

"Crazy bitch," he said. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Jo thought she caught the hint of a smile on his lips.

"Were you at camp?" Jo asked.

"Nah."

"Oh." So he didn't know if Amy and Carl had made it to safety. Jo chewed on her bottom lip and picked up her pace. _Please, please, _she thought, not sure who she was begging. She didn't believe in God. She kept seeing Carl's eyes. _Rick's eyes._

"What's the hurry?" Daryl said, but she wasn't paying him any attention. She stopped when she heard a voice coming from up ahead. "What?" Daryl muttered, reaching for his crossbow. Jo listened hard. There was the voice again. This time she heard what it said. Whoever it was, they were calling her name. She relaxed. The voice grew stronger. Then, Lee sprinted around a bend in the trail, with Shane and Amy close behind him.

Lee saw her and stopped dead in his tracks. Relief flooded his face. "Jo," he said, and then he was running again. She spread her arms just in time to catch him when he crashed into her with enough force that she stumbled back a few steps.

"I thought...I thought...oh god," Lee said.

"I'm okay," she said, cupping his face in her hands.

"I'm sorry," he rushed on. "For Merle Dixon, for calling you a whore, for..."

"Hush," Jo said. It didn't matter. She curled her arms around his neck, pushing his face against her shoulder, and held him tight. _Jesus, he's shaking. _Before they could say anymore to each other, Shane and Amy fell upon them.

"Are you alright?" Amy asked. Her face was white as a sheet. Shane tore Jo away from her brother and began inspecting her for bites.

"I'm fine." Jo said, pushing him off of her. "Stop that."

Shane pulled her into a hug. When he let go, his terrified expression had turned serious. "The walkers?" he asked.

"Ain't gonna be a problem no more," Daryl grunted. He and Shane exchanged glances. Shane nodded.

"Thanks," he said.

"Whatever." Daryl shuffled his feet, looking uncomfortable now. Without another word, he brushed past Jo and Amy, marching away from camp. Jo watched him go until he rounded the bend. _I owe him. _Her stomach clenched. pressed himself against her side. She set aside her thoughts on Daryl Dixon and swung her arm over her brother's shoulders. _Thank God for near death experiences, I guess. _She knew they would still need to talk, but for now, they were content to walk to camp together, side by side.

"Here," Lee said, putting Papa's hunting knife in her hand. "You shouldn't have gone off without it."

"Won't happen again," Jo said.

* * *

><p>Lori was waited for them at camp. As soon as she spotted them, she sprinted across the clearing and flung her arms around Jo's neck.<p>

"Thank god," she said, sounding choked. Jo stood stiff in her embrace. After a minute, when Lori still hadn't let go, she mouthed 'help' to Shane over the woman's shoulder.

"Alright," Shane said. "Let the girl breathe."

Lori stepped back. Her eyes were bright, as though she'd recently been crying. _Not for me, _Jo thought. _Couldn't be. _

"How's Carl?" Jo asked.

"Fine, thanks to you and Amy. I can't tell you how grateful I am that you..." She trailed off. A sob caught in her throat. "I've already lost my husband."

"C'mon now, Lor," Shane said. But it was too late. Tears sparkled on Lori's cheek. Brushing them away, she muttered an apology and hurried off.

"I should..."

"Yeah, go after her," Jo said, cutting Shane short.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine. Go."

Shane inspected her for another minute, nodded, and went after Lori.

"I'll give you two some privacy," Amy said. Then she retreated to the RV. Jo looked at her brother. _Well, here goes. _

"Lets talk," she said. Lee grimaced, but he followed her to their tent all the same. Neither of them said anything until they were inside. Jo zipped the door behind them. Then, she sat down on her sleeping bag. Lee crouched in the middle of the tent for a moment longer, before sitting next to her.

"Well," Jo began. Then nothing. _What now? _"I'm sorry," she blurted. It didn't seem like enough.

"I know," Lee said. His head bent, he untied his shoe lace and wrapped it around his finger. "I've done some thinking, thought. Not just today, but for awhile now." He paused for breath, then hurried on. "I ain't ready to forgive you. I might never be able to. Still, when I thought...when I..."

Jo reached out and took his hand. He didn't pull away.

"I was sure you were dead," Lee said. He looked at her. "I don't wanna be alone here, Jo, and you're all I got left. Blood's thicker than water."

"Blood's thicker than water," she repeated. _How many times did Papa beat that into us?_ She squeezed her brother's hand, but soon, he drew back. She let him go. _I ain't ready to forgive you. _Jo wouldn't push him to. _I did what I did and we both have to live with it._ It was more than enough that he was talking to her again. _Count your blessings._

"Do you miss her? Mama, I mean," Lee said, playing with his shoe string again.

"Yeah, I do," Jo said.

"It don't make it right, what happened, but I think she'd have wanted us to leave her."

He was right about both parts. Jo cleared her throat. _Don't get weepy, _she told herself. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but before she could, a strange sound caught her attention.

"Do you hear that?" she asked.

"What?"

The sound was getting louder. _It's getting closer. _Jo leapt to her feet and ducked out of the tent, with Lee right behind her. Others were drawn into the clearing by the sound. She caught sight of Shane and Lori, Carl pressed to her side, making their way to the RV. Jo and Lee joined them.

"What is it?" Shane called up to Dale, who was looking out at the road through the binoculars.

"I don't know yet," he said, watching. Amy emerged from the camper.

"What's going on?" she asked, staring out at the bewildered clump of people gathered outside of the RV. By now, the whole camp was there. Everyone could hear the sound. _I think it's a..._

"Car," Dale cried out. "Stolen by the sound of it."

_Car alarm, _Jo finished her thought.

"Is it Andrea?" Amy asked, turning towards the road. They didn't have to wait much longer to find out. A shiny, red charger came zipping down the road. Shane and Jim were already running to it before the car squealed to a stop by the RV and Glenn toppled out of the driver's side, grinning from ear to ear. Lee clamped his hands over his ears. The cry of the alarm bounced off of the quarry walls.

"Turn it off!" people shouted. Walkers for miles around would be drawn to the noise. Amy sprinted to the car and grabbed Glenn by the front of his shirt.

"Where's my sister? Is she alright?" she demanded.

"Open the goddamn hood, please," Shane yelled over the alarm, banging on the hood of the charger. Glenn untangled himself from Amy and did as he was told. In two seconds flat, Jim silenced the alarm.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Shane asked, rounding on Glenn, whose grin immediately faltered. "You practically rang the walkers' dinner bell."

"I'm sorry," Glenn muttered, blushing.

"I think we're okay," Dale intervened. Shane glared up at him. The older man held up his hands. "I'm not trying to argue, it's just that the sound must have bounced all over the quarry. I don't think the walkers will be able to pinpoint our location. Still, you might want to think a little more."He glanced at Glenn.

"What about my sister?" Amy said.

"The others?" Shane asked, still scowling.

"They're fine," Glenn said, raising his voice so that everyone could hear. "Everyone's fine." Relief spread through the camp. Not a minute after Glenn had given them the good news, a van rambled into the clearing. Andrea jumped out of the back. Amy ran to meet her. They crashed into each other, becoming a tangle of arms and blonde hair. Next, Morales' children streaked past to meet their father.

Jo and Lee stood apart from the reunions. They watched the supply-run group trickle out of the van, one by one, and be caught up by open arms and tearful faces. _Do you still miss her? Mama, I mean._ She almost expected their mother to step out of the back of the van. _We've already had too many miracles for one day_, she thought, looking at Andrea and Amy clinging to each other.

"What took you guys so long to get back?" Shane was asking Morales. "We thought you were all goners."

"We would have been," Morales said, one arm around his wife's waist and the other pinning his children to his other side. "If it weren't for the new guy."

"New guy?" Shane said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, he's a cop like you." Morales looked back to the van and called out, "Hey, new guy, come meet everyone."

Jo glanced up to see this mysterious savior. A man rounded the van. He stepped out of the shadows and froze. Jo blinked, hardly daring to believe what she was seeing.

"No way," Lee muttered. _No way, _Jo silently agreed. They stared at the new guy. He stared back at them. There wasn't a sound in the world now. _I've really lost it this time_. But Lee could see him, too. Judging by Shane's expression, so could he. _It can't be. He's dead. _She didn't believe that Rick Grimes was standing less than ten feet away from them, until Carl shattered the silence.

"Dad!" he cried, breaking free of his mother's arms. "Dad!"

Rick fell to his knees and caught his son. Lori collapsed beside them. No one else said a word. What could any of them say? It was the one miracle no one had expected. _He's not dead. _A smile broke across Jo's face. She grabbed her brother's arm to steady herself.

"He's not dead," she said out loud. _It's gonna take more than one, lousy bullet to take out Rick Grimes. _ Apparently, walkers weren't the only ones who could rise from the dead.


	12. Fever Bush

"For he has rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

-Colossians 1: 13-14

Jo had volunteered to gather more kindling. She'd needed a breath of fresh air, away from the smoking embers in the fire pit. From the edge of camp, where she crouched low and shined her flashlight over the ground, she could still hear the others talking and laughing. She glanced at the fire, where Rick sat with his family. Carl had fallen asleep in his lap. Jo smiled. Tonight, all felt right with the world again. _Rick's not dead. Lee's laughing around the fire with everyone else. Everything's gonna be alright._ She remembered how brightly Atlanta had shone, the night it burned, and though they kept their fires low, they were more of a beacon of hope than the city had been. It was a light in the dark that she trusted.

"Need any help?" Rick asked, coming up behind her. Jo scooped up the little pile of twigs into her arms.

"I got it," she said. "You ain't doing any work tonight, pig."

They didn't move to return to the fire just yet. Rick ran his hand across his stubbled cheek.

"You need a shave," Jo said, grinning. "Almost didn't recognize you."

"Probably wouldn't recognize myself. Lori told me what you did for them."

"I didn't do nothing." She kicked lose a rock embedded in the dirt, unable to get over the feeling that she was talking to a ghost. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to make sure he was flesh and blood, but she was afraid that her hand would go right through him, and, if he was just an illusion, she didn't won't to destroy it.

"You took 'em into your home," Rick said, looking at her with those serious, dark eyes of his. "You saved my son today."

"Yeah, well, I owe you."She wasn't good at admitting her debts. Cheeks burning in the dark, she looked at her feet. "I'm glad you're not dead and I'm glad you found us. Shane could use some help in this place."

"He's in charge?"

"More or less." Jo shrugged. "Must be that authoritative voice of his."She was waiting for Rick to ask the dreaded question. _Where's your mother? _But he didn't. They were quiet again for a minute. Then Jo said, "There's gonna be trouble when Daryl gets back."

Rick and the others had filled them on what had gone down in Atlanta. _Merle Dixon's handcuffed to a building, _she thought, looking out in the direction of the city. She wasn't torn up about it. In fact, she rather enjoyed the image. _Serves him right. _No one at camp gave a damn about Merle Dixon. _Except his brother. _Her smile turned into a grimace.

"I'll deal with it," Rick said, squaring his shoulders. "Heard the two of you had a disagreement."

"Something like that," Jo chuckled. She put a hand over her sore ribs.

"You do that to his nose?"

"I chucked a flashlight at his head," she admitted. Rick laughed.

"Sounds about right," he said. "I'm sure he had it coming."Rick's smile faded. His brow furrowed. Jo knew that look. _He's thinking real hard about something. _She suspected where his thoughts led, and it wasn't a road she wanted to follow him down. _Fuck Merle Dixon._

"Tomorrow," she said. "We'll worry about the Dixons then."

"Tomorrow," Rick repeated. He took the kindling from her arms and, together, they returned to the fire. Jo plopped down between her brother and Shane. For the rest of the night, she didn't say anything, content to listen to the others. Shane was more quiet than usual. _Must be the shock_, she thought, feeling a bit of that herself. _What about Rick? He's dead._ But he wasn't. Shane must have made a mistake or...she shook her head. _No, he wouldn't have left him. Not Rick._

Lee fell asleep by the fire. His head lolled against her shoulder. Jo ran her fingers through his dark, tangled hair. _It could use a trim_, she thought. _Tomorrow. I'll worry about it tomorrow. _Tonight, however, she put all her cares aside.

* * *

><p>Jo held onto the oh-shit bar of Shane's jeep as they jolted over holes in the road and took turns at a screeching pace. Wind slapped her in the face. The trees on either side of them rushed by in a blur impenetrable green. In the back, the water cooler tipped over.<p>

"Check it," Shane yelled over the wind. Jo unbuckled her seatbelt. Sitting on her knees, she hung over the back of her seat and stretched out her arms, to roll the cooler towards her.

"Not leaking," she said, sinking back into her seat.

"Buckle," Shane grunted. Jo rolled her eyes, but buckled up again and pulled the strap tight across her chest. He'd been in a weird mood all morning and hardly spoken a word to here on their water run. _What's going on in that head? _She stared hard at him, as if she could drill through that thick skull of his with the power of her mind. _Nothing. _It had to be something to do with Rick. Nothing else had changed in the past day. But Jo didn't have a clue why Rick's return from the dead would put Shane in such a sullen mood.

"What's up with you, man?" she asked, unable to hold her tongue any longer.

"Nothing," Shane said.

"I'm calling bullshit." Jo leaned towards him, to be better heard over the ripping wind. "Something's crawled up your ass and died. What is it?"

"Worried about when Daryl gets back. That's all."

Jo narrowed her eyes. She wasn't a good liar, but neither was he. Shane glanced over at her.

"What?" he snapped.

"He wasn't dead," Jo said, though she didn't want to. She didn't want to accept what it meant. _Let it go_, she thought, but couldn't. Another part of her said, _we have to confront these things now._ "You left him."

Shane jerked the steering wheel. The jeep bounced to the shoulder of the road and braked hard. He cut the engine. Birds chirped. The cicadas sang. He ran his hand through his hair and looked straight ahead.

"I didn't know what to do," he finally said. "The hospital was overrun. We wouldn't have gotten out alive. Not the both of us."He looked over at her. Jo expected that if she ever saw her own reflection again, her eyes would be just as pleading as his were right then. _Please, forgive me._

"You tried," she said. _I didn't even do that much. _"That's what matters. Rick would understand that."

"Lori won't." He sighed and started up the jeep again. "We should get this water back. Can't keep 'em thirsty."

"You 'member when you and Rick took us to that water park?" Jo asked.

"It was Lee's birthday, wasn't it?"

"Yeah. His eighth."

"What I remember is you getting sick in the wave pool," Shane chuckled. Jo had forgotten that part, but it came back to her now. _We had to go home early._

"Well, you shouldn't have told me I couldn't eat two ice cream sundaes by myself," she said. "Think that water park is still there?"She imagined what it looked like now. The empty pools. The colorful, plastic slides which would have run dry.

"Nah, closed down a few years ago. Thing they tore it down."

"Too bad. If we went back, I bet we wouldn't have to wait in any lines."

"Hell, we could just go to Florida. Hit up Disney."

"Carl would like that," Jo said. "Lets leave today."

"Whatever you say, boss."

Jo sunk down in her seat to escape the wind. She could see camp just up ahead. _I always wanted to go to Disney Land_, she thought, planning their trip in her head, even though she knew it would never happen. Shane parked in front of the RV. He had his hand on the door handle.

"Thanks," she said. Shane looked over at her. "For taking us to that stupid park. It was the only one we ever got to go to."It was her way of saying _I forgive you_. She didn't know if it mattered or not. After all, it wasn't her forgiveness he was after. Still, she wanted him to know that she didn't blame him. Not for leaving Rick or for putting a bullet through Mama's head. Shane understood what she meant. He always did.

Before anything more could be said, T-Dog joined them. He and Shane slid the water cooler out of the back of the jeep.

"Make sure to boil before use," Shane reminded those lining up for water. "And only take what you need."

Jo found Lee standing with Glenn, the two of them mournfully watching Dale and Jim take apart the shiny, red charger.

"Ain't it a crime?" Lee said to her. "Thought I might get a change to drive."

"Over my dead body," Jo said.

"What? It's not like I'm ever gonna get a license. You see any DMVs-" He was cut off by a child's piercing scream.

"Mom! Mom!"

"Carl?" Lori cried, already running, with Rick on her heels.

"Stay," Jo ordered her brother, before setting off after the others. They didn't have to go far. By the time she caught up, Lori was kneeling in front of her son, checking him for bites, while Carol did the same with her daughter. The children looked shaken, but unharmed. Jo passed by them, following the sounds of the men. She stumbled out into a small clearing, where the men stood in a ring, beating the walker at their feet with baseball bats and tire irons. There was a wet thud and the walkers head rolled away from its body. Dale stood over it, with a bloody axe in his hands and a stunned expression on his face.

"Two attacks in two days," he said. "They never used to come this far up the mountain."

"Well," Jim said, grimacing. "They're running out of food in the city, that's what."

Jo stepped towards the rotten body and noticed the gnawed on deer next to it. _Plenty of food here for them_, she thought. She'd just started to feel safe her. _We're building something in this place. _She kicked the walker in the stomach. Its presence so close to camp was an ill warning.

A branch snapped. They all turned their heads to a cluster of young trees, their leaves rustling. Shane lifted his baseball bat, ready to swing. He lowered it when Daryl Dixon surfaced from the trees.

"Oh, Jesus," Dale said in a low voice. Jo sensed that all of them would rather fight off another walker than tell Daryl what happened in Atlanta.

"Son of a bitch," Daryl said. "That's my deer." He strode up to the animal, hardly looking at those gathered around the two corpses. "All gnawed on by this filthy, disease-bearing, motherless, poxy bastard," he raged, kicking the walker carcass.

"Calm down, son. That's not helping," Dale interjected. It was the wrong thing to say. Daryl rounded on him.

"What do you know about it, old man?" he snapped. "I've been tracking this deer for miles. Gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison. What do you think?" He crouched by the deer and inspected its torn up belly, where the walker had been feasting. "You think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?"

"I would not risk that," Shane said. The very thought churned Jo's stomach. _I'd rather starve than share a plate with a rotter. _Daryl stood and sighed.

"That's a damn shame," he said. "Well, I got some more squirrels." He spotted Jo and tossed a string of half a dozen squirrels at her. "Why don't you make yourself useful, woman, and get to skinning."

Jo threw them back in his face. She spun on her heels and marched back to camp. _Why don't you make yourself useful, woman_...She wouldn't be talked to like that. _Like how Papa talked to Mama._ Returning to camp, she decided to pay off her debt to Daryl Dixon, for getting her out of that damned tree, as soon as she could. _Then I'll wring his goddamn neck._


	13. Gutweed

**AN: **Read, review, hopefully enjoy :))

**Preview: **On the road to Atlanta. More Daryl and more Glenn!

* * *

><p>"The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives."<p>

-Psalm 37:21

Five minutes after Jo stormed back into camp, the others returned as well. Daryl barreled out of the woods, calling out for his brother.

"They didn't tell him yet?" Lee whispered. Jo shook her head. _Apparently not, _she thought. She looked around. Everyone was gathered outside of their tents, with their eyes on Daryl, and all bracing themselves for the inevitable fall-out.

"Hey man," Shane said, hurrying after Daryl. "Just slow up a bit. I need to talk to you."

"About what?" Daryl said.

"About Merle. There was a...there was a problem in Atlanta."

_That's one way to put it, _Jo thought. Daryl stopped walking. He noticed that everyone was staring at him.

"He dead?" he asked, his voice flat.

"We're not sure," Shane admitted.

"He either is or he ain't."

Rick stepped forward. His police badge glinted in the sun. He said, "Look, there's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it."

"Who the hell are you?" Daryl demanded.

"Rick Grimes."

"Rick Grimes, you got something you want to tell me?"

"Your brother was a danger to us all," Rick said. "So I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there."

Daryl didn't anything for a second. He eyes narrowed as it sunk in what he'd just been told. A red flush crept up the back of his neck.

"Hold on," he said through clenched teeth. "Let me process this. You're saying you handcuffed my brother to a roof and you left him there?"

"Yeah," Rick said, unflinching in his honesty. Jo respected him for it. _But he just should have lied._ Sure enough, Daryl drew his knife without warning and charged Rick. Jo leapt forward, with no idea what she meant to do, but before she'd gone more than two steps, Shane had brought Daryl to the ground and locked him in a chokehold.

"You'd best let me go!" Daryl hollered. He swung his knife, but Shane knocked it easily from his hand. It landed near Jo's feet. She bent down and scooped it up. Her fingers curled around the hilt. _I'll kill him if I have to_, she thought, eyeing Daryl closely. _It'd be no sweat off my back. _

"Choke hold's illegal," Daryl grunted.

"You can file a complaint," Shane said. "Come on, man. We'll keep this up all day."

"I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic," Rick said, kneeling before them. Jo stood behind him, with the knife raised in her hand, daring Daryl with her eyes to make another move. "Do you think we can manage that?" Rick went on. Still glaring, Daryl nodded. Shane let him go, but Jo didn't lower the knife. _Who know what these Dixons are capable of? _She'd be damned if she let him hurt Rick. _Not now that we've just got him back. _

"What I did was not on a whim," Rick said, while Daryl got back on his feet. "Your brother does not work and play well with others."

"No shit," Jo muttered. No one was listening to her. At the same time she spoke, T-Dog stepped out of the crowd of on-lookers.

"It's not Rick's fault," he said. "I had the key. I dropped it."

"You couldn't pick it up?" Daryl demanded, rounding on him.

"Well, I dropped it in a drain. But look, I chained the door to the roof. So the geeks couldn't get at him. It's gotta count for something."

Daryl whipped his head between Shane, Rick, and T-Dog. "Hell with all y'all," he cried. "Just tell me where he is so that I can go get him."

"What? You're gonna go into the city alone?" Jo spoke up.

"Yeah, I am," Daryl spat back.

"It ain't gonna help your brother if you get yourself killed."

"She's right," Rick said, cutting Daryl off before he could argue further. He glanced at Lori, standing in the open doorway of the RV. "That's why I'm going back with him."

Lori shook her head and, without a word, retreated into the RV. Rick kept his eyes on Daryl now. Eventually, the redneck nodded. Then, he stomped off to gather his things. Jo watched Shane and Rick striding to the Grimes' tent. The two of them were bickering. She thought about going after them, but decided not to. _Let them talk it out_, she thought. _Besides, you need to do something else._

Jo sighed. The others were breaking off into groups, whispering to each other, and stealing glances at Daryl Dixon, who was counting his arrows. She turned to her brother.

"I gotta go with them," she declared. Saying the words out loud, she cringed. Lee gaped t her.

"What?" he asked. "Like hell you do. Rick can look after himself."

"S'not about Rick," Jo said. "I owe Dixon, alright."

Lee rolled his eyes. "Because of yesterday?"he asked. She nodded. "That's just plain crazy. All he did was shoot down a few walkers. Going to Atlanta, that's a suicide mission."

"Doesn't matter," Jo said. She jammed her hands into her pockets. Nothing her brother could say would change her mind. "I won't be debt to that man. Not even a little bit. You understand that."

"No, I don't," Lee said. He pushed past her. Jo didn't follow him. _So much for making amends_, she thought. She watched Daryl, stomping around his tent, and her chest tightened. He was crazy and Lee was right, going to Atlanta was likely to get them all killed. _If it was my brother, I'd go too, and fuck the consequences._

* * *

><p>"You're not going." Shane greeted Jo when she exited her tent, with her bag slung over her shoulder. <em>Lee must have told him.<em> She brushed past him and strode towards the white van with red, block letters (spelling Frenec) on the side. Shane stomped after her.

"Did you hear me?" he growled.

"Yeah, I heard, but I'm still going."

"Look here, girl." Shane grabbed her arm, bringing her to a stop. "I can't talk any sense into Rick. I can't stop him from going, but I'll be damned if I let you anywhere near that city."

"It ain't your decision to make," she snapped, jerking free of his grip. "So just stop trying to be my fucking father. Besides, I overheard you talking to Rick about those guns he dropped. We need 'em. Weren't you the one who told me I had to think about the welfare of the camp? Well, that's what I'm doing."

"Bullshit," Shane hissed. "You think you owe Daryl Dixon your life, because you can't just..."

"Just what?"

"You can't just accept when people help you," he finished. They were silent for a moment. Shane rubbed his face. His shoulders sagged.

"You're right," Jo said. "I can't. That's why you gotta let me go."

"And what about Lee?" Shane demanded.

"Anything happens to me, you'll look after him." Jo took a deep breath. She softened her voice. "But nothing's gonna happen."

A horn blared. Jo spotted Daryl behind the steering wheel of the van. "Come on, let's go," he shouted. Glenn was already idling by the van. Rick and T-Dog, who'd been talking to Dale, exchanged glances.

"I should go," Jo said.

"Come back, alright," Shane said.

"Is that an order, pig?"

"Damn right it is."He pulled her into a stiff hug.

"Look after Lee," she said, as he let go. "Tell him that I-" The horn blared again.

"Don't worry. He'll be safe here."

Jo nodded. She wouldn't have even considered leaving Lee, not for a single second, if Shane hadn't been there. _Never trust a pig_, Papa used to say, but Shane was so much more than that. _He's my blood, too._ _He's always looked out for us._ Jo made her way to the van. Less than five feet away, Amy came jogging up to her.

"Here," she said, thrusting an axe into Jo's hands. "You'll need something more than that knife."

"Isn't this Dale's?" Jo asked, weighing the axe. It was heavy enough to crack a skull, but not too weighty that she couldn't wield it with relative ease. She fingered the blade, hissed, and drew her hand back. A pinprick of blood blossomed at her fingertip. _Good, it's sharp._

"Yeah, it is," Amy said. "So you better bring it back." Then she threw her arms around Jo.

"I'll be back in time for your birthday," Jo said, untangling herself from the blonde woman. "Maybe I'll even find some cotton candy for you."

Amy gave her a tentative smile. Before she could say more, Daryl honked the horn for a third time. He stuck his head out of the driver's side window and yelled, "If you're coming, best get your ass over here right now."

"You sure you want to risk your life for the Dixons?" Amy asked, scowling over at Daryl. Jo wasn't sure. _Maybe I outta stay. _Every decision she'd made so far seemed to have been wrong. She swallowed down her doubts. There were times when she thought she couldn't so much as blink these days without it being a mistake, but one thing she knew for sure. _I pay my debts, no matter what. _ Squaring her shoulders, she crossed the last few feet to the van and climbed into the back. Glenn slammed the white, double doors behind her, throwing them into darkness.


	14. Wallflower

**AN: **Okay, so I deleted the last 4-5 chapters. Turns out, I hated them. The first bit of this chapter is the same as it was before, but the rest after that point is different/going to be different. Hope there isn't too much confusion. Just forget about the previously written Atlanta trip.

* * *

><p>"But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came out and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked himself that he might die, saying, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers."<p>

1st Kings 19:4-5

"Am I bigger than a house?" Jo asked, squinting through the murky light at Glenn, sitting across from her in the back of the Frenec van.

"No," Glenn said. To pass the time, and to take their minds off of what waited for them in the city, he'd taught her how to play twenty questions. Getting frustrated now, she pursed her lips. She wasn't bigger than a house. She wasn't made of steel. __Well, guess I'm not the George Washington Bridge.__

"Am I prickly?" she asked. From the front seat, Rick laughed.

"More prickly than a cactus," he said. Jo punched the back of his seat, but smiled all the same.

"No," Glenn said. She wracked her brains for another question. __I'm not human. I'm not blue. I'm not weather related.__

"Do I make a lot of noise?"

"No."

"I don't know. What am I? Just tell me." Jo felt like they'd been going at this for hours and she was nowhere closer to guessing what she was. __I'm Jolene Jackson. That's all.__

"You're pissing me off, that's what," Daryl grunted. His eyes hadn't left the road since they'd set out. His fingers curled around the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip. "Why don't y'all just shut up back there? Ain't no time for games."

"Hey, we're here, ain't we?" Jo snapped. "We're going with you into that hell hole. We're putting our lives on the line to save your good for nothing, junkie brother-"

Daryl whipped his head around. "You best shut up 'bout Merle," he said. The van veered onto the shoulder. Rick grabbed the wheel and jerked them back onto the road. The three of them in back were flung against the side of the van. T-Dog's elbow struck her chin. She pushed him off of her and skittered back to her corner.

"Enough," Rick said, turning his eyes from Daryl to Jo. Rubbing her sore chin, she glared at the back of Daryl Dixon's head. "We gotta stick together," Rick went on. "In Atlanta, we can't afford getting distracted by past disagreements. We work together or we die together."

"He's right," Glenn added. He looked at Jo when he spoke. "You don't know what it's like in the city."

__But he does, __Jo thought. __He's been there. I haven't. __She didn't have a clue, not really, of what she'd gotten herself into. In her mind, Atlanta was still burning, still screaming. All she knew for sure, was that looking into Glenn's eyes right now, she saw enough fear to convince her of the danger that awaited them. __Play nice__, she reminded herself.

"Fine," she muttered. "Truce."

Daryl grunted. They took it as his white flag. The tension remained. Like the humidity, it beat down on them, but everyone held their tongues. __Work together or die alone. __More than once, Jo asked herself why she was doing this. __Cuz I owe Dixon__. That wasn't all, though. There was something else eating away at her, but she didn't want to face it. __Why are you doing this? Why are you here? __The questions played over and over again. She pulled her knees against her chest and buried her face between them.

"So, what was she?" T-Dog asked, breaking the silence. "I gotta know, man. It's driving me crazy."

"Maverick," Glenn said.

"Who?" Jo asked, lifting her head.

"You know, from the X-Men comics. He's the guy that has the Legacy Virus."

"The what?" T-Dog said, cocking his head to the side.

"I never would've guessed that," Jo grumbled, putting her head back down. No one spoke for the rest of the drive. The time for games had come to an end. They had to brace themselves for what was coming.

* * *

><p>"We walk from here," Glenn said. He was kneeling between the front seats and looking intently through the windshield. The van shuddered to a stop alongside of a railroad track. Daryl cut the engine. T-Dog shouldered open the back doors. Gripping Dale's axe in both hands, Jo followed him out into the hazy sunlight. Up ahead, Atlanta shimmered like a mirage. The smell of rotting corpses wafted over them. Rick came and stood at her side, while the others gathered their supplies from the back.<p>

"I think you ought to stay with the van," Rick said.

"No way," Jo said, whipping her head around to face him. She hadn't come all the way out here to babysit an automobile.

"Someone needs to."

Jo looked around. There didn't seem to be a single living thing around for miles. Atlanta wasn't screaming anymore. The city was silent as a graveyard.

"What? You think the walkers have learned to drive?" she said. "They gonna take the van for a joyride or something?"

"We don't know who's out here," Rick said.

"No one, that's who."

"Jolene-"

"You don't think I can look after myself in there, do you?" she said, jerking her head in the direction of the city. Rick grimaced.

"I've been there. You haven't," he said. "The whole place is crawling with walkers."

"So?"

"So, you got a brother waiting for you back at camp. Anything happens to you, I'm the one that's gotta tell Lee."

"You got a family, too," Jo said.

"Please, just do what I ask this once. Weren't you the one that said you owed me? Well, I'm cashing in my debt. Stay with the van."

Jo scowled at him. She tightened her grip on the axe handle.

"Fine," she said. "I don't like it, but fine."

"Thank-you," Rick said. "Now look, if we're not back by sundown, or if anything happens while we're gone, you take the van and high-tail it back to camp. You got that?"

"Yeah. Mission understood." But she didn't plan on following that part of Rick's plan, should trouble arise. _If they aren't back by sundown, _she thought, _I'm going in after them._

Jo leaned against the side of the van and watched the others pass by her one by one; Rick and Glenn in the lead, T-Dog close behind, and Daryl making up the rear. She didn't wish them good luck. If they didn't find Merle Dixon, it certainly wouldn't be a tragedy in her eyes.

Daryl paused at the rear of the van. He held his crossbow at the ready and, when he turned to her, the point of thr arrow was aligned with her heart.

"I know why you came," he said. "Only reason Merle came here in the first place, was 'cuz that pig friend of yours asked him to, and the only reason he asked was 'cuz of you."

Jo didn't so much as blink, even though his words struck an uncomfortable chord in her breast. Daryl stared at her hard for a second. Then, he lowered his crossbow.

"Just in case we die," he said, "I wanted you to know, you ain't making up for anything. You ain't forgiven." He spat at her feet. She stood her ground.

"Better get going," she said. "Else they gonna leave you behind."

Daryl jogged off after the others. From the side of the railroad track, Jo watched them creep further and further into the city's shadow, until the four of them looked like nothing more than a chain of ants. Once they were completely out of sight, she hopped up onto the back of van. Her legs dangled over the bumper. She laid the axe across her knees. _So much for making myself useful, _she thought. A death-stench breeze stirred her hair. She kept her eyes on the city for awhile. _All the fires burned out. Nothing left but ash. _Atlanta was dead. The whole world was dead. In that moment, she was struck by the possibility that they were the only people left. Jo tore her eyes away from the ghost city.

_This is gonna be a long, long wait_, she thought.

* * *

><p>Jo checked her watch. <em>Still broken. <em>Neither the minute nor the hour hand had moved since the last time she'd been on the road to Atlanta. From where she was stretched out across the front seats, she'd been keeping track of the sun's progression across the sky. It wasn't the most accurate method of telling time, but she figured, given how much it had sunk since the men had gone, that at least three hours had passed. _Where are they? Where are they? Where the hell are they? _Over and over again, she asked herself the same question. There wasn't much else for her to do, except for to wait and to worry.

She regretted giving in to Rick's request so easily. _I should've gone with them._As she'd suspected, no one and nothing had come close to the van. She hadn't seen any walkers, either, or even a single bird. It was eerie. Unnatural. Despite the heavy heat, her arms were goose-pimpled. To break the silence, and to give herself something to do, Jo focused on remembering the words to another one of the songs Papa had sung to her when she was little. Beating her foot against the passenger window to keep a steady beat, she sang.

"I gave my woman half my money at the general store, I said now buy a little groceries and don't spend no more. Then she paid ten dollars for a ten cent hat, and got some store bought cat food for a mean eyed cat."

_ Where are they? _Jo paused and squeezed her eyes shut, wracking her brain for the lyrics. It'd been so long since she'd listened to any of Papa's songs. After he'd been taken away, she'd done her best to forget about him. Now, she thought about him nearly every day. Mama was dead, but Papa..._he could be out there somewhere._ It wasn't something she knew how to feel about. That day on the road to Atlanta, she'd told Amy that both her's and Lee's parents were dead.

"When I give her ten more dollars," Jo sang on, "for a one way ticket, she was mad as she could be. Then I bet ten more that if she ever left, she'd come a-crawling back to me."

She wondered what Papa would do if they ever came across each other again. What would he think, if she ever told him what had happened to Mama. _Probably wouldn't think nothing of it all. _She doubted she'd even be able to tell him, considering he'd most likely strangle her to death before she got the chance. _Traitor, traitor, _she could hear him screaming.

"When I woke up this morning and I turned my head, there wasn't a cotton picking thing on her side of the bed. I found a little old note where her head belonged. It said, dear Johnny, honey, baby, I'm long gone."

Her speculations were pointless. Even if Papa was still alive, the odds that they would just happen upon one another were absurd. Jo certainly wasn't going to go looking for him. _I'd rather be an orphan._ Still, all of his old songs were a comfort to her now. They were a fragment of the old world that would never rot, mildew, or crumble into dust. As long as she remembered the words and the tunes, they'd live on, and that was something.

"I asked the man down at the station if he'd seen her there. I told him all about her pretty eyes and long blonde hair. He spit his tobacco, said I'll be-"

Jo stopped mid-verse and, straining her ears, sat up in the front seat of the van. She'd thought she'd heard something outside, but wasn't sure. _Maybe the sun's fried my brain_, she thought, but she listened for a few minutes longer and checked the mirrors. She was alone. _God, where are they? _Jo pressed her palms flat against the hot dashboard and scrutinized the sun's position once again. She made up her mind. If the others weren't back by the time the shadow of a nearby telephone pole reached the van, she'd go in after them. Her eyes locked onto the spindly shadow. It crept centimeter by centimeter, ever closer to the nose of the van. _C'mon, c'mon_, she thought, drumming her fingers against the dash. Patience had never been one of her strongest virtues. Rick should have known better than to leave her behind with nothing to do but wait.

The shadow moved closer, closer, closer. _Almost there. _Jo reached over and grasped the handle of Dale's axe, which rested beside her in the passenger seat. Just as her fingers curled around the rough wood, something hard struck the side of her head.

Everything went black.


	15. Red Hot Poker

"For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace."

Psalm 102:3

Jo smelled smoke and oil. For a moment, she thought she was back in Atlanta, on the night it had burned. _That was days ago,_ she thought. _Wasn't it?_ She couldn't be sure. It felt like there was a ten-ton weignt pressing against the inside of her skull. She cracked open one eyelid. A streak of dusty sunlight ran across a swatch of crumpled metal above her. It looked like the roof had caved in. _Not the roof_...She wasn't in a house. She was in the Frenec van. Jo turned her head. There were the front seats, vertically stacked. She couldn't understand why the world was at the wrong angle. _You are now entering another dimension_, Jo thought, as she cracked open her other eye. There was a man in the driver's seat. She couldn't see his face. His body was slumped over the middle console. If it hadn't been for his seatbelt, he'd have fallen into the passenger seat. As it was, his neck hung at a strange angle. _Broken maybe? _Jo couldn't be sure.

Bit by bit, she understood where she was and what had , _that man in the front seat, _must have stolen the van, _and me._ But they must have crashed, because Jo realized that it wasn't the world that had tipped over onto its side, and the smell of smoke and oil wasn't coming from Atlanta. _Get out_, instinct told her. _Get out now._ Black smoke pured from the engine. It rolled against the windshield.

Jo tried to sit up, but was brought back down by a hot flash of pain. Her hands flew to her side, as though she could physically hold back the pain, but her fingers met something sharp and hard, instead of skin. _What...? _Jo lifted her head a bit, to get a look at whatever she was touching, and immediately wished that she hadn't. Jutting out from between her ribs was a twisted, inch thick, splinter of metal. _Oh God, oh God, that's not supposed to be there. Fucking Christ. _She caught a whiff of gasoline. The van could blow at any minute. Jo struggled to control her breathing. _Calm down,_ she ordered herself, _and get out of here. _She curled her fingers around the end of the shrapnel and clenched her teeth together. _Do what has to be done. _She wrenched the shard out of her flesh in one go. Thankfully, it wasn't too deeply embedded. Still, blood bubbled over her fingers. With one hand, she put pressure on her wound.

_Get out. Get out._ She couldn't afford to be distracted by the pain. Breathing through her nose, Jo managed to push herself up onto her hands and knees. Then, she crawled across the back of the van, to the dented in back doors. Jo tried the handle. Nothing. She slammed her shoulder against the doors. Nothing. She kicked them again and again and again, before slumping against the side of the van. It was useless. Those doors weren't going to budge an inch and time was ticking. Jo screamed into her hands. She kicked her heels against the floor. Trapped. No way out. Smoke was coming in through the open front windows. It stung her nose and throat. The gasoline smell was making her dizzy. _Focus. C'mon, focus. _Kicking and screaming wasn't going to keep her alive.

Jo scrambled back to the front of the van. She couldn't climb out the passenger window, as it was walled in by the ground. That left the driver's window. The only thing standing between her and freedom was the slumped over man. Crouching slightly and holding onto the passenger headrest, she was just able to stand. _He's dead. He has to be dead. _He didn't look to be breathing, but she had to be sure. Her hand trembling, either from fear or adrenaline, Jo reached out and prodded his head, turning it just enough to see his face. She drew back her hand and let his head fall as soon as she realized who it was.

_Merle fucking Dixon._After the initial shock subsided, a hot and cold feeling, part satisfaction and part disgust, rushed over her. _Serves him right_, she thought, glaring at the back of his head. But she couldn't look at him for long. Blood trickled from his temple, onto the seat leather. She remembered the last thing Daryl had said to her. _You ain't made up for anything. You ain't forgiven. _Jo shook her head to clear out Daryl's voice. Time was still ticking.

Jo jammed her hand in between the driver's seat and the door, and fumbled for the seatbelt buckle. She pressed down the button. Gravity did the rest. The seatbelt snapped. Merle's body slid down into the passenger seat, leaving her escape route clear. Making a point not to look at Merle's crumpled body, she wriggled in between the two seats and, clinging to the steering wheel, dragged her body into the front. Her feet brushed against Merle, but she quickly pulled them up onto the plastic console. Jo gripped the window and pulled her body upwards. Her torso was out of the van, when her foot slipped and she went sliding back in. She landed in a heap on top of Merle's body.

Thrashing like a wildcat, she tried to get off of him, but her foot was caught in the seatbelt. Her face was less than an inch from his. Jo had no choice but to look at him now and, on seeing that his eyes were wide open, she let out a scream.

"You tryin' to take advantage of me, suger tits?" he croaked. Jo yanked free her foot and climbed off of him. She lunged for the window, but Merle caught a fistful of her jeans and pulled her back down.

"Hell no, you ain't leavin' me here," he cried, his eyes wide with panic. He moved to wrap his hands around her neck, but when he did, his eyes widened even further. As did Jo's. Where his right hand should have been, there was nothing more than a charred, bloody stump. Jo's stomach churned. She choked back a gag. There was silence for a moment, and then Merle began to scream. The sound rattled her bones. She'd never heard anything like it before. It started as a mewl, but quickly grew louder and more monstrous.

It was too much. She couldn't quite comprehend what she was seeing. The gasoline fumes didn't help. _Get out. Get out. _Jo scrambled up to the driver's window yet again. This time, she didn't bother to be cautious. She propelled her body through the open window and rolled out onto the ground. Quickly, she got to her feet, and began sprinting away from the ticking timebomb of a van. But Merle's screams stopped her dead in her tracks.

"Come back, you bitch," he half roared, half sobbed. "C'mon, you can't leave me like this. You can't. Not like this."

_You ain't making up for anything. You ain't forgiven. _Hadn't she volunteered to rescue Merle? Wasn't that the whole reason she was here? Besides, what would she be if she just walked away, let him die. _I did that once before_, she thought, curling her fists at her side. If she did it again, she didn't think she'd be able to live with herself. Jo heaved a sigh and then back-tracked to the van.

Drawing on some strength she didn't even know she had, Jo managed to open the driver's side door. She leaned down into the tipped over van and dangled her arms down to Merle.

"Grab hold," she said. Merle clutched onto her wrists with his one hand. Using his elbows to push himself up, and with Jo tugging at him with all her might, he managed to squeeze through the window. Immediately, he collapsed in the dirt. When she'd been pulling Merle out of the van, she'd caught sight of Dale's axe on the passenger floorboard. Without stopping to consider the risk, she went back in to fetch it. _If we don't have a weapon, we're as good as dead. _Axe in hand, she crawled out of the van for the last time.

"C'mon," she snapped, hefting a semi-conscious Merle off of the ground. His weight sagged against her. "Stay with me now," she urged, as she tried to pull him away from the van. Smoke from the engine seeped down into her lungs. Eyes watering, coughing uncontrollably, she struggled to get Merle and herself away from the van, step by painful step. She led them away from the road, into the woods.

When she couldn't go any farther, she fell to the ground. Merle toppled down next to her. Jo sprawled out on a carpet of pine needles and stared up at the sky through the canopy of trees. Beside her, Merle curled up into a ball and continued to sob. _His hand...Oh my god, his hand. _But the true horror of what she'd seen didn't quite reach her as it should have. She felt numb, but as the adrenaline wore off, the full force of the pain returned. _We're going to die, _she thought, clutching her still bleeding wound with one hand and the axe handle with the other. _We're going to die._

Just then, the ground shook beneath them. Smoke billowed into the sky. The van had blown.

* * *

><p>Merle was passed out. Jo, using Dale's axe as a makeshift cane, stood over him. <em>What now? <em>She had no idea. What was she supposed to do with him? _I can't goddamn drag him back to Atlanta and the amputee motherfucker done wrecked the van. _Black smoke still spiraled up in the distance. They were at least thirty feet off of the road. She wasn't sure how she'd managed to get Merle so far. For a second, she was proud of herself. Then their current circumstance fell over her again like a hell cloud.

She looked down at her wound. It had stopped bleeding for the most part, but it needed a stitch or two. Compared to Merle's hand, though, her injury was a paper cut. All her life, she'd been slapping Band-Aids onto Lee's cuts and scrapes, but this was all way out of her medical experience. You couldn't just put a Band-Aid on a stump hand. _Besides, I ain't got no Band-Aids. _Jo nudged Merle in the side with the toe of her boot. He made a grunt. _Still alive. _It'd be so much easier if he died. Every cell in her body regretted pulling him out of that van. Looking down at him, unconscious and vulnerable, she considered how easy it would be to put Dale's axe through his head. Jo closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and fought back the desire.

_Water, _she thought, opening her eyes. That's what she needed. Water to clean their wounds. She decided the only thing to do was to take it one step at a time. Her canteen was still strapped to her waist. Jo cast another glance at Merle. His eyes rolled under his lids. He was cradling his stumped arm like it was a baby. Finding water would mean leaving him alone. Jo weighed her options. It didn't take long. There was really only the one. Her tongue was cracked and sore. _Water. _

Having made up her mind, Jo left Merle lying unconscious on a bed of crushed pine needles and set out in search of a creek, or a lake, _or a fucking muddy puddle for all I care. _She could almost taste the moisture in the muggy air and it tormented her. Her throat was raw from breathing in so much smoke. Jo stumbled deeper and deeper into the woods. She couldn't see the sun through the trees. _How much longer before dark?_ The thought of spending the night out here with a half-dead Merle made her cringe. _One step at a time, _she reminded herself.

After about thirty minutes of wandering, she came across a nearly dried up streambed. Falling to her knees in the mud, she drank her fill of water from her hands. Once her belly was full and sloshing, she collected as much as she could in the canteen. Jo followed her own tracks back to where she'd left Merle. She found him sitting up against a disease-spotted maple. His face was shock-white, but his eyes had lost their feverish shine.

Jo stopped in front of him and dropped the canteen into his lap. Merle fumbled with his one hand to screw open the top. In his haste, he spilled more water down the front of his shirt than into his mouth. After he took a few gulps, Jo snatched it back from him.

"Bitch, I weren't done," he snarled. She ignored him and set about gathering wood for a fire. The water would need to be boiled before she could clean her wound. Merle watched her build a small pile of twigs. She felt his eyes on her back.

"Got a light?" she asked, without looking at him.

"Nope," Merle said.

_The hard way then_, she thought. But she didn't know how to do it the hard way, and if Merle did, he wasn't making any offers to help. Jo stared at the pile of twigs, as if she could set them afire with the power of her mind. Nothing. _Fuck it._ She took a few gulps of water, then tossed the canteen back to Merle.

"Go ahead and finish it," she said. _I'll just get an infection and die. Whatever._ She didn't see what else she could do. Merle didn't look in any condition to stand, let alone walk miles and miles. _Where would he even walk to? _She had no way of knowing if Rick and the others were still in Atlanta. She thought, maybe, they should make their way back to the road, in case the rescue party passed by on their way back to the quarry. _Merle probably can't even it make it that far. _She wasn't sure if she could either.

Her first task, locating some water, had drained the last of her energy reserves. Jo sat cross legged by her pile of twigs and held her head in her hands. She had to take shallow breaths. The pain in her side was only intensifying.

"Well, sweet cheeks," Merle said. "What's the plan?"

Jo peaked up at him. Her jaw clenched. She felt the vein in her neck pulsing. _I could strangle him_, she thought.

"I don't know," Jo snapped. "Thought we might find a car to steal and then wreck it."

"Hey now," Merle said. "Ain't easy driving like this." He held up his stump. Jo averted her eyes. "Purty, ain't it?" Merle went on. "Did it all myself."

"You cut off your own hand?"

"Had to get off that roof somehow, didn't I?"

"We came back for you, dumb ass," Jo said. "You're welcome, by the way." Some thanks he'd given her, too.

"No need to be so testy. None of this would'a happened if Johnny Law hadn't locked me up. Man, you're sitting o'er there bitching, but last I checked, you still got all your limbs."

"Well, if you'd of just waited," Jo snapped, "you wouldn't of needed to cut off your own hand, you crazy son-of-a-bitch." She struck the ground with her fist. "But no, you had to...to fucking kidnap me-"

"I's doing you a kindness," Merle interrupted. He leaned forward. "Could've just left you for the walkers."

"Oh, thanks so much," she said rolling her eyes. _This is pointless_, she thought. Arguing wasn't going to solve anything. _Swallow your pride or die with Merle Dixon. _Jo put her head back into her hands. Chewing on her lip, she wracked her brain for what to do next. Still, she couldn't come up with a damn thing. She felt like her head was full of mush. The pain didn't make it any easier to focus. Her first idea was the only one she could come up with.

"We oughtta go back to the road," she said, looking up again. "Think you can make it?"

"That explosion might've lured in some walkers," Merle pointed out. "Besides, don't look like you'd be able to get that far, either."

"I'm fine," Jo snapped. Merle chuckled. It turned into a cough.

"You're one pig-headed whelp, ain't ya?" he said, as he wiped a glob of spit from his lip. "Be smart, girl. We got a few hours of daylight left. Get an hour of shut-eye. I'll keep a watch out."

Jo snorted. "You expect me to trust you?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Think 'bout it," he said. He shook his charred stump at her again. _God, just put that thing away_, she thought, her stomach churning again. Merle continued. "I ain't exactly in the position to be out here by myself. What good would killing you do me?"

Jo considered it. _I could sleep._ She didn't know how much of a choice she actually had. Her head was so heavy.

"C'mon," Merle coaxed. "Now, I know we didn't get off on a good foot, but you saved my life back there. I owe ya."

Jo didn't trust him. No matter what he said. Still, her body was going to shut down one way or the other. _I'll sleep for a few minutes, that's all, and then we'll go to the road._ Without saying a word, Jo stretched out on her back, a few feet from Merle. She folded her hands behind her head.

"Holler if anything happens," she said, closing her eyes. Dale's axe was on the ground beside her. "And don't let me sleep too long."

Merle grunted. It was enough of an answer for her. She was so tired, she almost didn't care what happened next. Almost. For a few seconds, there was only the sound of Merle's labored breathing and the wind rattling through the tree limbs.

Just as she was drifting off, Merle said, "My brother, did he come looking for me?"

Jo cracked open one eye and turned her head to look at him.

"Yeah," she muttered.

"Why'd you go with him?"

"I don't know." Jo looked up at the tree canopy again. "Guess I thought it was kinda my fault you went to Atlanta in the first place. That's what your brother said, at least."

"Bet he pitched a royal fit," Merle chuckled. "Always was a little sentimental, ya know."

Sentimental wasn't exactly the word she'd use to describe Daryl Dixon. _Hot-headed, maybe. Or an inbred, ass backwards degenerate. _

"You know what it's like," Merle said. "You got a baby bro. Good kid, too."

"Hey Merle," Jo muttered. She'd closed her eyes again.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

Merle kept on talking, though. His voice sounded as if it were coming from underwater.

"Ain't easy being oldest," he said. "You do what you can for 'em, man, but there comes a time when you just gotta..."

Jo didn't hear the rest. She fell asleep.


	16. Traveller's Joy

"If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not."

1st John 4:20

The van was on fire. Trapped inside, Lee was screaming. Jo fought to get to him, but a line of walkers blocked her way.

"Jo! Help me, Jo!" Lee cried out. Ash rained down from the sky. It dusted the ground like snow. Jo cut her way towards the van. _I'll walk through fire if I have to_, she thought. Merle Dixon materialized amidst the flames, but they didn't burn him. His bloody stump ignited like a torch.

"Need a light?" he asked. He grinned at her. Distracted, Jo didn't notice the walker coming up behind her. It threw its arms around her neck and opened its mouth wide.

Jo woke with a start. Something was tugging at her foot. Thinking it was some kind of animal, she kicked out at it.

"Get," she muttered. "Leave me alo-" A low, throaty growl stopped her mid-word. Heart still racing, Jo sat up. _Aw shit. _A man, in a singed, still smoking business suit, was at her feet. His mouth was clamped around the ankle of her boot. In an instant, she was wide awake. Her body acted before her mind had time to process what was happening. Without taking her eyes off of the walker, she grabbed the axe at her side. Then, she drew back her foot, the one not clamped in the walker's jaw, and slammed it as hard as she could into the filthy rotter's head. It fell backwards. Jo took the opportunity to plunge the blade of Dale's axe between its pale ice eyes. The walker slumped over onto her legs.

She took a moment to catch her breath and let the walker stay where it had fallen. Jo looked to the tree where Merle had been sitting earlier, assuming that he'd fallen asleep, but there was no one there. Apart from her and the dead walker, she was completely alone.

"Merle?" she called out, as she pulled her legs out from under the corpse. No response. Not even a breeze through the leaves. "Merle," she said again, but she knew he was probably long gone. _Son-of-a-bitch_.

"Son-of-bitch!" she screamed, hoping that he'd hear her, wherever he was. Jo yanked the axe free from the walker's head. There was a sickening, wet suction sound. Flecks of blood and brain matter splattered her cheek. She wiped it off with the back of her hand as she moved to the tree. He'd taken the canteen, but left the axe. _Suppose that's something, _she thought, unsure whether he'd left it on purpose or just hadn't thought to take it. Either way, it didn't matter.

Jo tilted back her head and squinted up at the trees. From what she could see of the sky, it looked like daylight was fast slipping through her fingers. There was no telling how long she'd been asleep. She waited where she was for a few minutes, just in case Merle returned. _Maybe he just went for more water._ But she didn't really believe that. He'd wanted her to go to sleep. He'd wanted an opportunity to slip away. _God only knows why._ Jo scanned the shadowy trees. _He'll die out there on his own._ For a second, she thought about trying to track him down, but quickly decided against it. She'd done enough for Merle Dixon. Clearly, he didn't want anymore of her help. To be honest, she was relieved that he was gone. Wherever he was, he wasn't her problem anymore.

Wide awake now, her adrenaline pumping once more after such a rude awakening, Jo swung the axe over her shoulder and set out for the road. It didn't take long for her feet to touch down on pavement. The van was on the shoulder. A few walkers shuffled around it. Some of them looked burnt, like the one that'd woken her up. Sticking close to the tree line, Jo hurried further down the road before they took notice of her. The sun hung dangerously low on the horizon. After a few minutes of aimless walking, she came upon a mile marker and paused to consider her location. Merle had managed to get quite a way out of the city before totaling the van. The quarry was closer than Atlanta. _Besides, Rick and the others are probably already back there. _Jo made up her mind to keep with her current direction, back to camp.

She walked as fast as she could. Soon, her side wound began to ooze blood again, but she didn't stop. There wasn't any time to waste. _Not when you're trying to outrun the sunset_, she thought, as she pressed on.

"Stay with the van," she muttered to herself, mimicking Rick's voice. "You'll be safer that way. Yeah right." She decided that if she ever made it back to camp, if she ever saw Rick again, she was never going to forgive him for leaving her behind. From time to time, she burst into a sprint, but she couldn't run for any great distance. The sun was whipping her ass. She was loosing the race and she knew it. Each step was a trial.

_C'mon, _she told herself. _You promised Lee you'd come back. Don't break that promise. _She chanted her brother's name in her head to the beat of her footfalls against the pavement. It was the only thing that kept her going. He'd been right. She never should have volunteered to go to Atlanta. This whole rescue mission had been nothing more than a big, fat failure. Though she'd saved Merle's life, she felt far from a hero. _He's probably still gonna die. _But that wasn't the problem. Not really. She'd never given a shit about saving Merle Dixon. All she'd wanted was to save herself and it hadn't worked.

* * *

><p>Jo couldn't see more than two or three feet in the distance. The sky was black as coal. No stars in any direction. The moon hid behind the clouds. She'd come to the gravel road, which curved down towards camp. To her right, there was a drop off. She stepped carefully, afraid of accidentally walking right over the cliff and plunging into the lake like that walker woman she'd seen with Amy days ago.<p>

_Almost there_. _Almost there. _Jo thought about what she'd do when she finally made it home. _And yes, after today, the quarry is home. _You had to leave a place to realize how important it was to you. She decided that she'd never leave camp again. No more rescue missions. No volunteering for any future supply runs. She was done with venturing out into this dead, wide world. Perhaps now wasn't the best time to be making any decisions. Her thoughts unravelled like a skein of yarn tangling around her fingers. Her clothes and hair smelled of gasoline and smoke still. She stumbled along through the dark. Gravel shifted under her boots. _I could eat a whole deer by myself_, she thought. Her stomach clenched with hunger. The pain in her side had reached such an extreme that it almost hurt less, as if she'd reached her pain threshold and could feel nothing past it.

The gravel road evened out. She was grateful to no longer have to walk slightly down hill. Camp must only be a mile away. _What am I gonna tell Daryl? _Somehow, she hadn't considered that question before now. Her mind had been elsewhere. Now that she had remembered the other Dixon, Jo realized she wouldn't even know where to begin. An image of Merle's charred stump flashed across her mind. No, she certainly didn't look forward to the conversation that surely awaited her. _I came all this way, _she thought, _and Daryl's probably just gonna put an arrow through my neck when I tell him I let his brother slip off. _She hoped that maybe, just maybe, the younger Dixon hadn't come back with Rick and the others. She hoped he'd stayed behind to keep up the search for his brother. _It's what I'd do._

Jo veered off of the gravel road, onto a dirt trail, rutted by tire tracks from Shane's jeep. Less than a mile to go now. This was the final stretch. She didn't dare stop for a second, even just to catch her breath, for fear that she wouldn't be able to make herself start up again. Then, just up ahead, she saw light. A campfire. _Home. _Jo smiled for the first time all day. Exhausted as she was, though, she couldn't hold it for long. Still, the glow of the campfire was like a soothing balm after hours of trial and agony. Lee was there, waiting for her. Amy too. They were probably worried to death about her. She couldn't wait to tell them, _I'm fine, really. _

Just a few more feet to go. She could see shadowy figures moving across camp. A strange sound carried over to her. _What is that? _Jo strained her eyes, but the RV blocked her view of most of the camp. The strange sound grew louder as she approached. At first, she thought it must be an animal. A dying dog or something, whimpering its last. She limped the last little bit and rounded the back of the RV. Then stopped at last.

Bodies. Dozens of bodies were scattered across camp. Some of them walkers. Some of them...Jo's eyes lit on the source of the strange sound. It was no dying animal. At the foot of the RV steps, Andrea, that inhuman wail spilling past her lips, was doubled over someone. Whoever it was, Jo couldn't see their face. Only their legs sprawled out across the ground. Their tennis shoes. _No. No. No. _Amy's tennis shoes. _No. _

She didn't want to believe it. She couldn't believe it. Jo tore her eyes away from the muddy shoes, but discovered that there was nowhere safe to look. The ground was covered in bodies. Faces she recognized. She barely registered the living people running towards her, until a hand curled around her arm. Jo reared back, ready to strike.

"It's me," Glenn cried, holding up his hands. Jo blinked at him.

"What...what...?" She couldn't find any words. Andrea's cries drowned out everything. _They could be anyone's shoes_, Jo thought. _It's dark. They might not be Amy's. _Jo swayed where she stood.

"Whoa," Glenn said. He wrapped his arm around her waist. "You should sit." She flapped her hands at him. _No. No. I have to...do something. I have to...They're definitely not Amy's shoes. _

"Aw man," Glenn said, still holding her up despite her weak efforts to push him away. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Merle," Jo muttered. It was as much as she could say. Everything that had happened that day- the wreck, Merle's stump- seemed like a distant memory now. She couldn't tear her eyes away from those tennis shoes.

"What'd you say?" Daryl asked. Jo heard him, but she didn't bother to look at him. _They're not Amy's shoes. They're not. _"Hey, I'm talkin' to you."

"Lay off it," Glenn said. "This isn't the-"

Daryl shoved Glenn aside. He grabbed hold of Jo's shoulders and shook her. Still, she didn't look at him. Andrea was howling even louder.

"Where's my brother?" Daryl demanded, shaking her harder. Jo barely understood him. It was as though she'd forgotten how to speak english. She just couldn't understand what was happening. Her brain wouldn't allow her to process what her eyes and ears were telling her. Daryl let go of her shoulders. He drew back his hand and slapped her across the face, hard enough that head snapped to the side. Then, he took hold of her again.

"Where is he?" Daryl roared. Jo dropped back into her body. Her cheek stung. Acting on instinct, she tried to slip free of Daryl's hold.

"Let me go," she cried, pushing against his chest with both of her hands. The effort was futile.

"Not 'til you tell me where the hell my brother is. You see him? He with you?"

"No," Jo snapped. "No, I don't know. He's gone. He's just..."

"What d'ya mean, gone?"

Jo didn't get a chance to answer. Next thing she knew, Daryl was being torn off of her.

"The hell you think you're doing?" Shane barked, as he shoved Daryl back. He stood in front of Jo, with one hand on his gun and both eyes on Dixon. The last time she'd seen him look like that was the day he'd taken Papa away for good and that had been the first time she'd ever been scared of him.

"Bitch knows something 'bout my brother," Daryl said. He paced back and forth in front of Shane, but made no attempt to get past him.

"Damn your brother," Shane said. "If it weren't for that good for nothing jackass, we wouldn't be surrounded by our dead right now. Take a look around, Dixon. Your brother really worth all these peoples' lives?"

"Hell with you." Daryl took a step towards them, but Jo had stopped paying him any attention. She grabbed Shane's arm.

"What happened?" she asked. He met her eyes for a second, and then turned them to Andrea.

"Walkers," Glenn said. That was all she'd needed to hear. Reality hit her like a brick wall. _Or like Merle Dixon's fist. _Pure horror filled her to the brim. She looked at Andrea. At those damn shoes, and she knew that Amy was dead. Even Daryl fell silent, though he continued to pace.

"Lee," Jo said. As soon as she said his name, everything fell away again. She scanned the camp. _Why hasn't he found me yet? Didn't he hear Daryl screaming? _Jo stumbled past Shane and Daryl. She dropped to her knees by the nearest body. It was face-down. She rolled it over. _Not Lee. _She moved on to the next. _Not Lee._

"Jo," Shane said, crouching next to her. "C'mon, get up." He tried to put his arm around her waist, but she jerked away.

"Where is he?" she asked. Shane didn't need to speak. She saw the answer clear as day in his eyes.

"No," she said, backing away from him.

"I'm sorry, Jo. It all happened so fast. I-"

"No!" Jo clambered to her feet. She stumbled forward. Shane reached out to catch her, but she shoved him back as hard as she can, and kept her hands raised as a warning not to come any closer. He wasn't scary anymore. Nothing scared her when her brother's safety was in jeopardy. _Not Papa. Not rotters. Not hell itself._

"You said you'd keep him safe," Jo cried.

"I know. I-"

"I saw him," a small voice piped in. Jo spun around to find Carl standing behind her. His little body trembled, but his eyes were steady when they met Jo's.

"Where?" she said.

Carl pointed to the left, past the tent she shared with Lee. "To the quarry," he said. Jo strode back to where she'd dropped the axe, scooped it up, and spun back around. As she marched across camp, towards the woods, Shane followed close behind.

"Wait a minute," he said. "Just think about this for a second."

"Ain't nothing to think about." Jo kept looking straight ahead, into the dark. Shane made another grab for her. Jo raised her axe.

"Don't think I won't," she growled.

"Alright," Shane said, taking a step back. She turned her back on him, on all of them. Alone, she plunged into the woods. Andrea's wretched howls stalked her through the night.


	17. Torch Lily

"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace."

Ephesians 1:7

Jo couldn't hear Andrea anymore. The trees on either side of her muffled all sound. _Lee_, she thought. _Lee. _She never should have left him and if she found him, she never would again. Instead of coming home, she'd arrived at just another graveyard. That's all the world was now. She'd been foolish to think it could be anything otherwise. But she wasn't going to bury her brother. _Lee, where are you? _ If she'd lost him, that was it. Closed curtains. No applause. The end.

A twig snapped behind her. Without coming to a full stop first, Jo spun around. Daryl leapt back just in time to avoid being cut open by the blade of the axe.

"Easy," he said. He shined his flashlight in her face. She glared against the light for half a second, and then started marching again. If he'd come to ask more about his brother, _if he's come to murder me where no one's looking, _she didn't care. Daryl jogged along beside her.

After another minute, still not slowing, she glanced over at the man.

"I don't know where your brother is," she said, her voice hoarse and breathy.

"We can talk about Merle later," Daryl said. "Right now, we find your brother. Kid's life's more important than Merle's."

_Shit, _Jo thought, turning her eyes away from him, to the stream of light from his flashlight falling over the trail before them. _I must be hallucinating. _But with the light, she could move faster, so she didn't say anymore about Daryl Dixon's presence. _Lee. I'm coming._

Once they broke free of the trees, and touched down on the beach, Jo broke out into a full-on run. Sand flew up behind her heels. _Lee._ Dale's boat bobbed far out on the calm, black water. A lone figure was perched in the prow.

"LEE!" Jo screamed as loud as she could. She didn't care that it felt like her throat was ripping open. "LEE!" Her voice skipped over the water, but the figure in the boat didn't move. Either Lee couldn't hear her or didn't want to. Jo strode into the lake. She had to see his face. She had to check him for bites. _I need to grab onto him and keep holding on 'til hell freezes over and Merle Dixon grows a new hand._Knee-deep in the water, Jo began to shiver. It had to be at least ninety degrees tonight. _You're going into shock_, that voice in her head informed her. Reluctantly, she took her eyes off of the distant boat, to look at her wound. It hadn't hurt for awhile now. She was surprised to see that, over her ribs, a dark stain of blood had seeped through her tank top. Jo pressed her hands over it, clenched her teeth together, and continued battling her way towards the boat.

"Hey! Hold up!" Daryl called after her. Jo didn't look back.

"LEE!" she screamed again. Nothing. She heard splashing behind her. Hard, calloused fingers clamped around her arm.

"Ge'off," Jo snarled.

"Nah," Daryl said, yanking her around. Jo lost her footing on the sandy lake bottom. She fell back and crashed through the surface of the lake. Water flooded into her open mouth and against her open eyes. Cold. In that moment, it was all she could think. _So fucking cold. _But within seconds, Daryl caught her around the waist and pulled her out of the water like she were a fish on a line. When she hit the air, she started coughing.

"Get it out," Daryl said. He didn't wait until she was done, before he started moving back to the shore, dragging her along with him. Jo could barely breathe, let alone put up a fight.

Daryl let go of her as soon as they stumbled onto shore. Jo sat on the damp sand. Once her heart stopped pounding a samba, she lifted her head up from between her knees. The boat had only moved further out. Jo turned her eyes to Daryl. She didn't say anything, but he understood.

"Fine," he said, scowling. He scooped up his leather jacket from the ground, where he'd left it before plunging into the lake after her, and dropped it over her shoulders. Then, he waded back out into the water. Jo wrapped her arms around her legs. Darkness lurked in the corners of her eyes. _Stay awake_, she ordered herself, as she watched Daryl swim further and further out. Daryl's leather jacket clung to her wet skin. It didn't do much to keep her warm, but she didn't care. _Bring him back to me_. She rocked back and forth in the sand. _Please God, let him be okay. Let me keep him. _It'd been a long, long time since she'd asked God for anything.

For once, it seemed He was listening to her. She stood when she saw Daryl clambering over the side of the boat. She thought it might tip, but it didn't. Soon, it began moving towards shore. Jo paced at the water's edge. _Let him be okay and I'll never do anything bad again. I swear._ She waded out to meet the boat.

"Get back," Daryl called out, but she ignored him. Her eyes locked on her brother, sitting in the prow. Lee looked at her over his shoulder. She stumbled against the side of the boat and stretched her hands over the sides to take his hands.

"Are you hurt? Are you okay? Are you-?"

"I ran," Lee said. His voice was flat. His face was pale, but he was alive. She scanned him for injuries. There wasn't a scratch on him.

"I saw Amy get..." He trailed off and at the shore. "I just left them."

Jo didn't know what to say. Physically, her brother was right there in front of her. Mentally, he was a whole other world away. _I don't care, _she thought, squeezing his hands. _He's alright._ They could deal with the rest later.

Daryl leapt overboard, to push the boat the rest of the way home.

"Get in," he ordered. Jo shook her head.

"I can help," she said, still holding Lee's hands.

"No, ya can't. You'll just get in the way."

Jo knew he was right. He held the boat steady as she climbed in and collapsed next to her brother. She let her head fall against his shoulder. Rocked by the boat, and warmed by Lee's body close to her's, Jo finally allowed herself to rest. _Home, _she thought. _Thank God, I'm home._

* * *

><p>Jo woke up on top of her sleeping bag with her back pressed against her brother's. She wasn't wearing her wet clothes anymore, but she didn't remember changing. In fact, the whole walk back to camp seemed like a dream. It was dark still. Lee snored softly. <em>He always could sleep through anything. <em>And she'd always envied him for it, because sometimes, she felt as if she hadn't slept a wink since the day he was born. Someone had to be alert. Someone had to keep him safe while he slept.

Sitting up was a challenge. Jo lifted her shirt to check her wound. Someone had stitched it for her while she was passed out. _Or I just don't remember that either, _she thought, as she gently touched the two, crooked stitches. Whoever'd done the job certainly was no surgeon. _Guess you can't be picky about your doctors these days. _She laid back down next to Lee and stared up at the roof of their tent. Andrea wasn't crying anymore. Outside, it was eerily silent. Jo closed her eyes and tried to fall back asleep, but when she did, she saw the bodies. It was too much. For awhile, she just listened to her brother's steady breathing. She had to pee, now, but she wasn't ready to confront again what waited for her outside. _Amy's muddy tennis shoes. _

In the dark, she thought she heard a voice. Amy's voice blowing through the leaves. _You sure you wanna risk your life for the Dixons? _Jo didn't want to hear it. _I should've stayed_, she thought. _If I'd stayed..._What? She didn't know. Rationally, she knew that even if she'd been here, Amy might still be...still be...She couldn't even think the word. _If I'd have known I'd be risking her life for the Dixons, I'd never have left._

Jo groaned. She was ten seconds away from wetting the sleeping bag. Biting her lip to keep from crying out, she got to her feet and waddled outside. A vile smell assaulted her. _Like a dead dog rotting in the summer. _Only it wasn't a dog. She kept her eyes on the ground and refused to look up until she'd rounded her tent and gone a foot or so into the trees. Her hands shook as she fumbled with her zipper. Just when she'd managed to pull it down, someone spoke.

"What you doin' up?"

Jo whipped around to face Daryl, standing a few inches away from her.

"Gotta go," Jo muttered.

"Where?"

"Nowhere." Her hands were still on her zipper. "I meant I _gotta go." _

"Oh," Daryl said, catching on. "Right, do what you gotta do, then." He turned his back to her, but didn't make any move to leave. His crossbow was in his hands. Jo stared at his back for a moment. His clothes were still damp. She debated asking him to go, but then thought, _what the hell._ Dignity was a thing of the past. _Not that I ever had any to begin with. _Jo dropped her jeans to her ankles and squatted. She did the job as fast as she could.

"You can turn around now," she said, once she'd finished. Daryl did. Neither of them seemed willing to take the first step back to camp, to the bodies.

_I could use a smoke_, she thought, fishing her pack from her pocket. _Three left. _She didn't care.

"Got a light?" she asked.

In response, a small light erupted in the dark. With two cigarettes in her mouth, she bent over to catch the flame.

"Smoke for a light," she said, holding one of the lit cigarettes out to him. For another minute, they were content to smoke in silence. But Jo knew what was coming. She was too tired to run from it and somehow, the inevitable conversation on the horizon was preferable to going back to a camp strewn with bodies. She waited for him to break first and, eventually, he did.

"Merle do that?" he asked, gesturing at Jo's face. She prodded her temple with two fingers and winced.

"He snuck up on me," she said, "Knocked me out. Stole the van. Next thing I 'member is waking up in the back, with the van on its side."

"Must've been hard driving," Daryl said, flicking his cigarette with a little more force than necessary. "What with only one hand."

Jo winced. "You know?" she asked. Daryl nodded. His eyes burned. Or maybe it was just the reflection of her cigarette ember.

"He dead?" Daryl asked, looking out at the woods.

"I really don't know. We got out of the van. He told me to get some sleep. I woke up and he was just gone." Tonelessly, she reapeated the events of the day. It was hard to believe those things had happened to her just a few hours ago. She remembered how confused she'd been when she'd woken up in the tipped van. It was exactly how she felt now. _Like the world's rolled over on us. _She didn't go into any details. What did they matter?

"Well," she said, rounding on him. "You gonna scream at me some more?"

"No." Daryl stamped out his cigarette with the heel of his boot. "I believe you."

Jo almost laughed. It was the strangest thing she'd heard all day. Daryl looked at her like she was crazy.

"Ain't nothing to smile 'bout," he said. He was right. _Amy. _The name tore through her without warning. _You sure you wanna risk your life for the Dixons?_

"You remember what you said in Atlanta?" Jo blurted. "About how I wasn't making up for anything by trying to save your brother?"

"Yeah," Daryl said.

"Well, I didn't go 'cuz of Merle. Fuck your brother. He's dirt, ya know." Her voice had risen as she'd spoken. Daryl was just watching her.

"You done?" he said.

"No." She paused, not quite sure what it was she wanted to say.

"Well?" Daryl said. "If you ain't got more to say, we best head back." He took a step towards camp. Jo stayed where she was. There was something, a word, clawing at the back of her throat.

"Thank you," she said. Daryl stopped.

"What for?" he asked, turning back to look at her.

"You know know what for."

"Yeah, well, you was fixin' to get yourself killed," he said. "Too many people died today already."

Jo wrapped her arms around her waist. Daryl's words hung heavy in the sweltering air. In silence, they trudged back to camp and parted ways at their tents. Jo nodded. It was as much of a good night as she good muster. Still refusing to look at the bodies, she ducked into her tent and crawled back to her spot beside Lee.

"Where'd you go?" he asked. Jo wasn't surprised that he was awake.

"Girl's room," she said. Then silence, which was soon broken by muffled sobs. Lee trembled against her. "Hush now," she whispered, putting her arms around him, and holding him like she hadn't since he was just a kid. _Since we were both just kids._

"I left them," he sobbed. "Amy screamed and I looked over and there was a..."

Jo was relieved when he trailed off. Maybe it was selfish, but she didn't want to know.

"I didn't know what to do," Lee said. At a loss for words, Jo tightened her hold on him.

"I left them. Oh God, I left," Lee kept saying. _That makes two of us,_ Jo thought. She wanted to tell him that it was okay, that he was forgiven. How could she, though, when she didn't believe it was true? The only people who could forgive them were dead, and while the dead now walked, they had yet to start talking.


	18. Bee Balm

"I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight."

Genesis 23:4

Sunlight flooded the tent. Jo groaned. Her side ached like a motherfucker. Her legs were two useless pipes of lead. Sometime in the night, Lee had rolled over to his own sleeping bag. His back was turned to her. _Is he awake? _She couldn't tell, but if he wasn't, she didn't want to be the one to drag him back to this godforsaken world. _Let him dream while he still can. _

Jo, however, had to get up. The smell was a thousand times worse than it'd been last night. It was boiling inside the tent and that smell of decomposing flesh was trapped in with them. Covering her nose with her hand, she crawled over Lee's legs, to the door.

Outside, the smell wasn't much better, but the breeze helped some. At the very least, it wasn't so concentrated. Jo gulped down a few breaths and, holding her screaming side, stood by the open tent flap for a moment. Camp looked infinitely worse in the daylight. There was no avoiding it now, not with the sun shining down on the corpses. Her eyes roamed over them. Nearby, T-Dog and Daryl were lugging one of the bodies out of camp. She watched them until they passed by the RV, but then her gaze froze on Andrea. It didn't look like she'd moved at all since last night. From where she stood, Jo still couldn't see much more than Amy's muddy tennis shoes and Andrea's back.

_I should go to her, _Jo thought, but she wasn't ready to see Amy's face. _One step at a time. _Instead, she limped over to Glenn, who was standing over a body sprawled face-down in the fire pit.

"One of ours?" she asked.

"Yeah," Glenn muttered, wringing his red baseball cap in his hands. "Sandy Cooper. She had a son at NYU. Told me about him awhile back."

"Bet she was real proud of him," Jo said, looking down at Sandy Cooper. Her back looked like a bull mastiff's well used chew toy. It was hard to reconcile the oozing, gnawed on corpse to the woman with a son at NYU.

"Where we takin' them?" Jo asked.

"A little ways outside of camp." Glenn wiped the sweat from his eyes, and then put his hat back on. Jo looked around camp again. Everyone was doing something. Rick and Shane were nowhere to be seen. Lori, either. Dale was kneeling by Andrea. Jacqui and Jim were arguing over how best to carry the body at their feet.

"Lets finish this," she said, turning her eyes back to Glenn. Bracing herself against the smell, she bent over and snaked her arms under Sandy Cooper's knees. Crouched between the dead woman's spread-eagle, half-raised legs, Jo looked up at Glenn.

"Well?" she grunted. She couldn't hold her current position for long. Grimacing, Glenn looped his arms through the dead woman's.

"One, two, three," Jo said through her gritted teeth. _Lift with your knees,_ a high school gym teacher used to yell at them on weight lifting day. A body, she realized, was a lot heavier than anything she'd ever had to lift in P.E.

"You sure you should be doing this?" Glenn huffed. She answered by taking a step in Morales' and Daryl's direction. Glenn stumbled after her. _What else am I gonna do?_ She couldn't just sit in the shade, relax, sip iced tea. Besides, sitting still left too much room for thinking. After just a few steps, her side was on fire and she could feel her clumsy stitches straining under Sandy Cooper's dead weight. But the pain was good. The physical labor was good. She didn't have to confront the truth of their situation or grapple with what would happen next. _One step at a time. _

"Sure you're alright?" Glenn asked.

"Uh huh." Her arms shook and her lips were pressed together in a thin, white line. They made it past the circumference of the tents, and, soon after, Glenn lost his grip. Still holding the dead woman's legs, Jo lurched forward as the top half of the body fell. Sandy Cooper's face cracked against the ground. Jo managed to spin in mid-air, to avoid falling on the corpse, and landed on her injured side, instead, with one arm trapped under Sandy Cooper's knees. The pain knocked the breath out of her. She glared up at Glenn, but he seemed to have forgotten that she existed.

"What are you guys doing?" he said, staring down Daryl and Morales, who were standing next to a pile of bodies not far away. "That one's for geeks. Our people go over there." Glenn flung out his arm and pointed to a second pile of bodies a few feet in the opposite direction. Jo glanced over at Sandy Cooper. A glistening chunk of skin flapped loose just below her ear. _Our people, _she thought. They barely even looked like people anymore. They were left-overs.

"What's the difference?" Daryl said, glaring back at Glenn. "They're all infected."

A flush crept up the back of Glenn's neck. Hands fisted at his sides, he strode a few steps towards the pile of geeks. It looked like he planned to throw a punch at Dixon's face. Jo had never seen the kid's temper flare before. _He's gonna get his ass kicked. _One look at Daryl's rattlesnake glare and she knew who'd come out the victor of that fight. She tried to stand, to intervene before Glenn did something stupid, but the pain brought her down. _ useless_.

Glenn stopped about a foot away from the two men. _Don't you do it,_ Jo thought at him as hard as she could. _Don't you pick a fist fight with Daryl Dixon. _She didn't want Glenn to be the next body she had to throw onto the _us_ pile.

"Our people go in that row over there," Glenn said, pointing to the other pile again. "We don't burn them. We bury them. Understand?"

Morales nodded. He bent down to retrieve the body they'd just dumped, but Daryl didn't move. Nor did Glenn.

"Our people go in that row over there," he said again.

"C'mon, man," Morales added in. "Just do it."

"You reap what you sow," Daryl grumbled, before turning his back on Glenn, to help Morales drag the body to the _us_ pile.

"You know what," Morales snapped. "Shut up."

"You alright?" Jo asked, when Glenn returned to her. She craned her head back to see his face.

"No," he said. _He's either gonna puke_, Jo thought, _or faint. _Glenn did neither. He readjusted his baseball cap. The flush left his cheeks.

"You're bleeding," Glenn said.

"What?" Jo looked down. Sure enough, a few spots of blood had seeped through her shirt. She pealed back the sweat drenched fabric from her skin to take a look. Her wound had opened again_. _The oozing hole was no bigger than a nickel.

"Must've popped a stitch," she said.

"You should get that sewn back up," Morales said, pausing beside Glenn and leaning over to take a look. "Infection's the last thing you want to happen. C'mon. I'll walk you back."

She let Morales pull her to her feet.

"Don't worry, I've got you," he said said, curling his arm around her waist. Jo leaned her weight against him and let him lead the way back to camp. _So much for keeping busy_, she thought, wincing with each step. It'd been somehow easier to carry Sandy Cooper's dead weight than her own.

"How's your family?" Jo asked.

"Shaken up," Morales said. "But none of them were hurt, thank God."

_Yeah, thank God. _Back at camp, Andrea still hadn't moved.

_ "_She'll turn soon," Morales said, his voice low and weighted. She was about to ask who he was talking about, but she answered her own question before she could even open her mouth. _Amy. _Jo had forgotten that death wasn't a permanent thing anymore. She wondered, _will Amy still be one of us or will she have to go on the other pile?_

* * *

><p>Lee was up when she ducked back into their tent. His puffy, bloodshot eyes went straight to her bloody shirt.<p>

"What happened?" he asked.

"Split a stitch."

"Come here." He patted the empty space beside him, then pulled his backpack into his lap and began rummaging through it. Soon, he pulled out a spool of fishing wire and pack of needles. "I worked hard on those you know," he said, when she sat down next to him. She looked at him at a loss for words. So, he'd been the one who'd stitched her up. She watched him cut the fishing wire with his teeth and thread one of the needles.

"Lift your shirt," he ordered. Jo did as she was told. She hissed when the tip of the needle pierced her skin and quickly looked away.

"Where you learn to do that?" she asked, breathing out of her nose and trying not to think about what he was doing.

"Mama," he said. "I used to help her patch up the animals, 'member. This ain't nothing compared to a dog fightin' dog's bite. We got a pit bull this one time that damn near needed its whole leg sewn back on."

"Didn't know you guys did so much."

"Yeah, well, someone needed to do it. S'not like we could afford to take 'em all to the vet." He gave the fishing line a tug. Closed up, the hole didn't hurt as much, but she hated how the stitched pulled at her skin. It reminded her of the time she'd had to have her forehead sewn up, after Papa knocked her into the kitchen counter _on accident. _

"Lee?" she said, after a minute of silence. "I gotta ask you something."

He didn't say anything until he finished tying the stitches. Jo let her shirt fall down. She looked at the dark, pinprick stains and thought, _no point in changing, it's only blood. _

"Alright," Lee said, as he put the fishing wire and needles back into his bag.

"I don't know what's gonna happen next," she admitted. It was difficult for her to do. Always, she'd had to be the one who knew what to do. Every decision had been on her shoulder. She'd had Shane and Rick take Papa away. She'd had Mama put down like a dog. Every day since, she'd wondered if she'd done the right thing. She'd carried the guilt, the confusion, the regret, but she couldn't keep on that way. It wasn't fair to either of them. Lee wasn't a kid anymore. He couldn't be. If they were going to survive together, they had to make their decisions together.

"I don't know if we're gonna stay here," she went on. "And I don't know if I can after..."

Lee cleared his throat. He wouldn't meet her eyes. _After we both let these people down,_ she knew they were both thinking.

"What I'm trying to say is," Jo said, before she lost her nerve. "I'm asking whether or not you want to stay with the group or...or make a go of it on our own."

Finally, Lee looked up at her.

"You think we could do it?" he asked. Jo shrugged.

"We've always managed, just the two of us."

"Yeah," Lee said. "Yeah, maybe..."

"Just think about it. You ain't got to decide right away." Jo got up and made her way towards the open tent flap. "I'll give you some privacy," she said, pausing on the threshold.

"What you gonna do?" he asked.

"Just something. It's not important," she lied. Lee didn't question her. He had bigger things to think about. Most of the bodies had been cleared away. Glenn was sitting by the fire pit, jabbing at the ashes with a stick. Jo looked past him, to the RV, to Andrea's back and Amy's muddy tennis shoes. It was time to face the truth. Amy would turn soon and Jo needed to see it. _You can't run forever_, she told herself, as she took her first step towards where she least wanted to go.


	19. Earth Gall

"So it will be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power."

1st Corinthians 15: 42-43

Jo sat cross-legged some distance from Andrea. She couldn't bring herself to move closer. _They're not your family, _she reminded herself, as she ripped up a fistful of dead, brown grass by the roots. Though she'd been sitting there for at least an hour, she and Andrea hadn't exchanged a single word or glance. Jo didn't want to intrude. She felt like an outsider. All around her, families mourned their dead, and those lucky families' that had gone untouched by the massacre, huddled together in impenetrable knots. _A lone wolf's a dead wolf,_ she thought, glancing quickly at Amy's white, blood splattered face. They were all refugees again. Just when they'd started coming together, just when they'd accepted that this place was home, it had all fallen apart in less than ten minutes. The group was broken. She could see it on all of their faces. Any hope they'd had left had been carted off to the body piles.

Jo tore up another clump of grass. She couldn't stay in this place. That much she knew for sure. It would always be a graveyard now. She wondered what Lee's decision would be. _Whatever he wants to do, _she thought, _we'll do. _He wouldn't want to stay here, either. She doubted anyone in the group would. It wasn't safe anymore. Maybe it never had been. _Maybe we were just a bunch of idiots._ The walkers were hungry and there wasn't anything left for them in Atlanta. _We need to get away from that place. _She looked in the direction of the city and remembered sitting on top of the RV with Amy, stuck in traffic. _I heard they're setting up refugee camps, _Amy had said. But there'd been no refuge waiting for them there and there'd been no refuge for them here. The full weight of the new world dropped down on her. Nowhere was safe for the living.

"Amy," Andrea said. Jo lifted her head, just in time to see Amy's chest fall, then rise again. Andrea put her ear over her sister's heart, but there was no need. They could hear her breathing. Amy's hand, lying palm open in the dirt, twitched. _Don't look away, _Jo told herself. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and bit hard. _Don't look away._

_ "_Amy," Andrea repeated, as she lifted her sister into her arms, to cradle the girl's head against her chest. "Amy, I'm sorry," she sobbed. She pushed Amy's hair back from her had begun to snarl. Her head rolled in Andrea's arms as she sniffed at the air like a wild dog that's caught a whiff of dumpster meat on the breeze. Her eyes latched onto Jo for a moment. But they weren't Amy's eyes. All color had been bleached out of them. They were dead. _She's dead._ Jo had seen what she'd needed to see. _It doesn't matter what we've done or what we're gonna do. _It didn't matter that she'd given up on Mama without even trying. _There ain't right or wrong decisions anymore. We could all be dead in the blink of the eye. Me, Lee, everyone._

Jo slid Papa's hunting knife out of her boot. Amy had turned her face back to her sister. She lifted her arm from the dirt and curled it around the back of Andrea's neck. Her fingers twisted in her sister's hair. _Do it,_ Jo thought. Andrea looked up at Jo for the first time today. It was so much harder to meet Andrea's eyes than it had been to meet Amy's. Death, after all, was painless, while life hurt too much to bear. Jo nodded. _Do what has to be done._ Amy's growls had begun to draw the attention of the others. _Do it. Do it. Do it. _

"I'm sorry," Andrea said, one last time. Finally, Jo looked away. A single gun shot rang across camp. Then nothing. No screaming. No crying. No beating their fists against the earth and howling _why us, God, why us?_ None of them had the energy for anything like that. Neither Jo nor Andrea moved. Amy's blood seeped into the thirsty earth. Whatever happened next, Jo understood now. The land belonged to the dead. It belonged to the walkers, to Mama, _to Amy; _and the rest of them, the living, were just intruders in a foreign land, traveling with expired visas.

* * *

><p>Jo watched Daryl and T-Dog load Amy's body into the jeep, with Andrea trailing along beside them. After they'd driven away, leaving a cloud of dust behind them, she leaned against the hot, metal side of the RV and closed her eyes. Someone inside was whimpering. "No, no, no, no, not this, please, oh no." It was a man, but she couldn't deduce more than that. Whoever they were, she wished they'd shut-up. <em>Not this, please. <em>There wasn't anything else besides _this._

The RV door creaked open. She heard heavy boots hit the ground and the door clattered shut again. Jo opened her eyes and squinted up at Shane, haloed by the mocking Georgia sunlight.

"Lee alright?" he asked, shifting his eyes to his shoes. _No thanks to you_, she thought, but didn't say. He'd suffered enough for one day. They all had. Besides, if she and Lee decided to head out on their own, she didn't want to leave Shane thinking that she hated him. _I owe him some peace of mind, at the very least._

"Yeah, he's fine. Look, I wasn't in my right mind last night. I didn't-"

"You ain't gotta explain yourself to me," Shane said, holding up his hand. "I know what your brother means to you."

The whimpering inside of the RV grew louder. "No, no! Stay away from me. No, not again," a man cried out. Jo scrunched up her forehead and listened.

"Is that Jim?" she asked. A dark shadow flitted across Shane's face. He nodded.

"Got bit," he said. Jo pushed off of the RV. The window was too high for her to peak through. Any way, the curtains were shut tight.

"What're you gonna do?" she asked.

"Right now, we're just tryin' to keep him safe. People are scared. Ain't thinking clearly."

_They want to kill him._ That's what Shane was trying to say.

"Rick wants to go to the CDC," he went on. "Says he met some man back home, who told him there were still people holed up there."

"What do you think?"

"It's a load of shit, s'what I think." Shane ran his hand through his hair. "We can't go back into Atlanta. Especially not now with half our people dead."

Jo agreed. Atlanta was a fool's dream. There wouldn't be any cure waiting for Jim, or the rest of them, there. But she knew Rick, too. He wasn't the sort who could just sit back and watch a man die without trying everything he could to save him. _That's the difference between him and us, _she thought, inspecting Shane. Suddenly, something clicked.

"Me and Lee," she said, choosing her words carefully. "We're thinking about...heading off on our own."

"You lost your mi-?"

"If we do, I want you to come with us."

Shane's eyes widened. Clearly, this wasn't something he'd expected. Jo waited for him to say something, but he didn't. Inside the RV, Jim moaned, "no, no, no."

"Ain't nothing set in stone yet," Jo said, after a minute. "It's just, these aren't our people. They're not mine and Lee's. I see you running yourself to death, trying to keep them safe, but maybe...maybe you've done all you can for them. You don't want to go to Atlanta, but you know nothing you say's gonna change Rick's mind. Lori and Carl will go with him. They're his family."

Jo paused for breath, then blurted out the last bit of her speech. "But you're our family. I care 'bout Rick, too, but he's got his own to look out for."

"Lee wants to go?" Shane asked.

"He's thinking 'bout it now. Whatever he decides, I'm with him."

"I told Rick we should head to Fort Benning." Shane's sweaty brow furrowed in thought.

"We could go. The three of us." She liked the sound of Fort Benning. It was hundreds of miles away from Atlanta. During their conversation, the jeep had rolled back into camp. Glenn and Morales loaded up the last of the bodies. Shane sighed.

"I don't know. Maybe," he said.

"No, no, no, no," Jim cried. There was a loud thump, and then nothing. She wondered if he'd knocked himself out. Shane looked at the camper, as if debating whether or not he should go back in and check on the doomed man. He decided against it.

"We'll talk about this later," he said. "Right now, we got a funeral to go to."

Jo nodded. As soon as their dead were buried, though, she planned on getting his answer.

"I should get Lee," she said, stepping towards their tent. Shane threw out his arm to stop her.

"Let me," he said. "I wanna ask him 'bout all of this. You go on ahead. We'll meet you there."

She was about to refuse, but then remembered what she'd said to him not five minutes ago. _You're our family. _Here she was, ready to walk away from Rick, from Andrea, from all of these people. Not Shane, though. He'd never walked away from her or Lee, and for years, she'd given him hell. He used to drop by their house, to check on them, and she would throw rocks at his car until he left. Day after day, he'd kept coming, though. Jo had never understood why and she'd never asked.

"Alright," she said. "Be quick."

Then, she fell into step behind Jacqui and Morales' family. At the edge of camp, Jo glanced back in time to see Shane duck into their tent. _Just the three of us. _She liked the sound of it. Less people to take care of. _Less people to lose._


	20. Crow's Toes

"Lift up your eyes and see who has created these stars. The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; Because of the greatness of His might and strength of His power, not one of them is missing."

Isaiah 40:26

The last funeral Jo had gone to had been her great-aunts. Lee hadn't been born yet. Papa had carried her to the open casket and, standing over the old, weathered woman's body, he'd told her, "That's the last of the old blood." Now, standing over Amy's fresh grave, she remembered those words. _The last of the old blood._ Most everyone else had returned to camp. No doubt to debate among themselves about what to do next about Jim, about where they would go. Jo had stayed behind.

"I just need a minute," she'd told Rick and her brother.

Nearby, Daryl tossed the last shovelful of dirt onto Carol's husband. A crow, cawing from time to time, circled low above them. Jo bent down, pried up a rock embedded in the ground, and threw it as hard as she could. It missed the crow by a good three feet and plummeted back to earth. She tried again. Missed again. She retrieved the rock, screwed up her face, and threw it up into the air for a third time. As it fell, having missed again, an arrow cut through the muggy air and pierced the crow's breast. She watched the big, black bird nose-dive to the ground. It landed near Daryl's feet. His crossbow still in his hands, he gave the bird a kick.

"Damn crow," he muttered, stepping over the bird and joining her by Amy's plot. "She was your friend, weren't she?"

"No," Jo said, her voice flat. "Hardly knew her." She looked over at him. Daryl's army green wife beater clung to his sweaty chest. His dark hair was flattened to his forehead. _Burying people is hard work. _ "Guess your brother was smart not to come back here."

"I've heard my brother called a lot of things," Daryl said. "But never smart."

"You think he's still alive?"

"Yeah."

"You gonna try to find him?"

Daryl scratched the back of his neck. He didn't answer for a minute.

"Don't know," he said at last. "Think I'll stick around a bit. See what the others are gonna do."

Jo raised an eyebrow. "Thought you'd have hit the road last night," she said. "I mean, ain't no secret you're not fond of us."

"Us?"

"The group. Rick."

"Rick's alright," Daryl said. "For a pig, that is."

"He's gonna take Jim to the CDC," Jo said. She squinted up at him as she spoke, trying to gauge his reaction. His expression didn't change. It stayed just as surly as ever.

"Heard somethin' 'bout that," he said, shrugging. "Sounds as good a place as any. We had a run in with some people while we was in Atlanta. They seemed to be holding up alright."

"What people?"

"Bunch of Mexican gangsters or somethin'. Took over this nursing home."

"What'd ya mean, _took it over_? They didn't..."

"Nah. They didn't massacre the old folks or nothin'. You got a sick mind, girl."

Jo narrowed her eyes. "Look around," she said, gesturing at the row of grave mounds. "The world's fucking sick."

"Always has been," Daryl grunted. He picked up the shovel at his feet and swung it over his shoulder. Without another word, he started walking back to camp. Jo watched his retreating back for a moment. "You coming?" he called over his shoulder, pausing at the edge of the clearing.

Jo squatted at the foot of Amy's burial mound. With her finger, she wrote an epitaph in the dirt. _Amy, rest in peace._Eventually, rain would wash the words away. _When the flood is gone, we still remain. _She turned her back on Amy's grave and jogged to catch up to Daryl. For Amy's sake, she hoped the clouds were made of cotton candy in heaven.

* * *

><p>When Daryl and Jo re-entered camp, they found the others assembled by the RV. Jo broke away from Daryl and joined her brother, who was standing next to Glenn. All eyes were on Rick and Shane.<p>

"What's going-?"

Glenn shushed her. Jo glared at him, but didn't have a chance to say to him what she wanted to.

"Listen up everybody," Shane said, scanning the crowd. "I've been, uh.." His eyes passed over Jo without pause. "I've been thinking about Rick's plan. Now look, there are no..." He was struggling. Jo could tell. Shane cleared his throat, glanced at Rick, and pushed on. "There are no guarantees either way. I'll be the first one to admit that. I've known this man for a long time, though. I trust his instincts."

Shane honed in on Jo. Speaking directly to her now, he said, "I say the most important thing here is we need to stay together. So those of you that agree, we leave first thing in the morning."

His words slapped her in the face. Jo stared back at him. _So, this is how he gives me his answer._ It was a cowardly thing to do, she felt, to tell her that he wouldn't go with her and Lee in front of everyone. She wasn't stupid. She knew what he was doing. By giving his answer this way, he'd given her no opportunity to protest, to convince him otherwise. There was a silent plea in his eyes. _Don't hate me. Try to understand. _

"Okay then," Rick said. "It's settled."

But it was far from settled. As the group disbanded, to talk among themselves, Jo turned to her brother. She had Shane's answer now. _To hell with him. We don't need him anyhow. _It was time to hear Lee's.

"Could you give us a moment?" she said to Glenn, without taking her eyes off of her brother.

"Yeah, um, sure," Glenn said. She waited until he was gone, before speaking.

"Well? What's it gonna be? Are we going to the CDC with them or not?"

"I think we ought to go with them," Lee said. It wasn't the answer she'd expected. Not after last night. _I ran. I ran. _

"Why?" Jo demanded. "They're not our-"

"Shane said some things," Lee interrupted. "Told me we couldn't keep running away from everybody."

"He's full of shit," she snapped, her anger flaring. So that's why he'd wanted to talk to Lee in private. He was too chicken shit to tell her how he really felt to her face, so he'd gone behind her back instead. Her hands curled into fists. _Daryl best start digging one more grave,_ she thought, glaring daggers at Shane's back. He knew as well as her that walking back into Atlanta was as good as a death sentence for them all. _So, why's he going? Is it cuz' of Rick? _They were partners, after all. Brothers, really. She should have known better. _He was always gonna pick Rick over us. _So much for being a family of three.

"He's right, Jo," Lee said. Somehow, he looked older. There was a determined gleam in his eyes. He squared his shoulders. "We left Mama. Both of us, we left her. Last night, I left these people, too, and I can't keep doing that."

"You ain't got nothing to make up for," Jo said. "These people aren't our blood. It's always just been-"

"The two of us," he finished for her. "Yeah, but how well has that worked out for us?"

"Just fine," she said stiffly, but she didn't believe herself anymore than he did. They'd never been just fine. Not even before the goddamn apocalypse. She couldn't look at him anymore, because she knew what he was really getting at. She'd done everything she could to protect him, but it had all been for nothing. Time and time again, she'd let him down.

"I did my best for you," she said, staring off into the distance. She hadn't shed a tear when Mama died, or when she'd pulled a shrapnel dagger out of her ribs, or just minutes ago, when she'd watched Andrea drag her sister's body into a shallow grave. But now, her eyes burned. _Don't you let him see you cry._ Lee put his hand on her arm.

"I know," he said. "But you never should've had to carry all that on your own and now...now you don't have to anymore. We can stay with them."

Jo wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. _Get a grip_, she told herself.

"Alright then," she said, still unable to look at him.

"Jo, don't get all-"

"I said alright." She shook off his hand and took a step back. "It's what you wanna do, so we'll do it. That's what we agreed, ain't it?"

"Yeah, but if you wanna talk about it..."

"Nothing more to talk about," she muttered. "You better start packing."

Jo left him standing there. She strode across camp, past their tent, into the woods. As soon as she couldn't see camp anymore, she stopped. Breathing hard, she just stood there among the tall pines, with her arms hanging limp at her sides and her back to camp. Shane had tricked her. She was certain of it. He'd never had any intention of going off with them. She'd flat out told him that whatever Lee decided, she'd go along with it. _I can't go back on my word. _Shane knew that, too.

Her anger quickly dissolved. She felt betrayed by Shane. By her brother. The two of them were all she'd ever needed and she'd thought they felt the same. _Guess not_, she thought, tilting her head back. The sun was warm on her face. Deep down, she knew Lee had made the right call, but that only made it so much worse. _I did my best for you. I really did. _In the end, it hadn't mattered. She'd never been much good at anything.

* * *

><p>Lee's bags were already packed. He was out on patrol with Shane.<p>

"Just doin' my part," he'd said, on his way out. She wondered what exactly Shane had said to him.

_Guess I better pack too,_ Jo thought. Her clothes were strewn across the tent. She picked up a pair of jeans by the entrance, but didn't do anything more besides twist them in her hands. _Shane says we can't keep running away. _What the fuck did Shane know about anything? She threw the jeans back onto the ground. In that moment, she'd have killed for a cigarette. Standing in the empty tent, glaring at her brother's packed bag, she chewed on her bottom lip.

_Wonder if he's got any weed left. _Jo knelt by her brother's bag. She pulled back the zipper and plunged her hands into his neatly rolled up shirts. There, at the bottom of his bag, she found a dirty, rolled up sock with something crinkly inside of it. Sitting on Lee's sleeping bag, she dumped out the contents of the sock into her lap; a plastic crack lighter, a plastic baggie of weed, and a pack of rolling papers. She set to work. It'd been years since she'd rolled a joint.

She flattened out one of the thin papers against her knee and sprinkled a fat line of weed down the middle. Then, she picked it up carefully and began rolling the paper outwards with her thumbs. The finished product wasn't very impressive, but it would do. She set the joint between her lips, flicked the lighter, and breathed in deep. The smoke seared her throat. The joint, still burning, fell into her lap as she coughed. Quickly, she plucked it up. _God, I'm old, _she thought, wiping the tears from her eyes and fighting back her coughs. _Can't even smoke a joint anymore._

Jo pressed on. It wasn't as good as a cigarette, but it was better than nothing. After a few more hits, her toes started to tingle. The tent was like a sauna- hot as hell and full of thick, white smoke. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck. She tilted back her head and tried to blow smoke rings against the roof of the tent, but she couldn't remember how. One more puff and she was good. A dopey smile settled on her face. _I missed this_. Her body was light as air. The ache in her side had become a dull nuisance. She forgot about Shane, about Lee, about tomorrow morning.

"Shit," she hissed, dropping the joint again. She'd even forgotten that she was still holding it. The paper had burned down to her fingertips and it was still burning on Lee's sleeping bag. "Shit. Shit. Shit." She tamped it out with her fist, but not before it had burned a small hole into the sleeping bag. _Oops. _Jo chuckled. _He's gonna find out now. _She felt like she'd gone back in time, to high school, to the days where she had to sneak onto the roof to smoke. Papa would've killed her if he'd ever found out, but she'd been good at covering her tracks. _Not anymore_, she thought, sticking her pinky through the burn hole in Lee's sleeping bag.

Suddenly, the air in the tent was too thick. She needed to move. To take a walk. Something. Anything. Electric currents ran up and down her spine, but her thoughts moved at a sloth's pace. Outside, camp was quiet. She spotted Dale pacing the roof of the RV. At least, she thought it was Dale. The dark pressed against her eyes. _Soft as lamb's wool. Or baby hair. Or..._She started walking. Lost in her thoughts- _or flower petals or snack cakes, God, I wish I had a brownie or a pie, yeah, a pecan pie- _Jo didn't pay attention to where she was going, until something caught her eye.

She rounded Daryl's beat-up, _piece of shit_, truck and stopped dead in her tracks. _Sweeeeeet._ The word dragged on in her head as she gaped at the motorcycle, propped up on its kickstand in a rippling pool of moonlight. It looked like something sent straight down from heaven. She closed her mouth, let out a low, appreciative whistle, and tentatively stepped towards the bike, with one hand stretched out to touch it. Her hand hovered over the worn-in, leather seat._ Bad idea, _that nagging voice in the back of her head spoke up. The bike was Dixon's. She'd noticed it before now, but hadn't dared come this close to it. After all, Papa used to say, "You don't ever mess with another man's ride, lest you wanna lose a hand." _Ironic, all things considered,_ she thought, thinking about Merle's stump.

Still, the bike was a beauty. _An honest to God vintage Triumph Chopper. _Jo ducked her head back around the hood of the truck, to get at look at Daryl's tent. Either he was asleep or out. She turned back to the bike. _Don't you do it_, the nagging voice said. _He'll kill you if he finds he won't find out. Oh yes, he will. He's not even here. But if he comes back...He won't...Don't do it. Don't do it._

_ "_Oh, just shut-up," she said out loud, trying to shake that nagging voice out of her head. She only wanted to touch the bike. _S'not like I'm planning on stealing it. _Jo double, then triple, checked that she was alone. The coast was still clear. She held her hand over the seat again and, this time, lowered her fingers until they brushed the well-worn leather. A fresh wave of electric sparks shot up through her arm. She remembered being sixteen years old, on the back of Joe McGinty's Harley, with no helmet and only the wind whipping against her cheeks. She remembered how she'd let go of his waist, stretched out her arms, and giggled into his ear, "fly on, captain." _I only dated him cuz' of that bike._ She'd broken up with him while he was in the hospital, after he'd totaled the Harley, and she hadn't ridden a bike since.

_Fly on, captain. _Jo checked around the truck again. Dale was no longer on the roof of the RV. The tents were shadowy mounds. _Grave mounds. _Brushing the thought aside, she turned back to the bike and climbed on. She flexed her fingers around the handholds, closed her eyes, and pretended she was on a never ending stretch of road. _Desert on both sides. Tumbleweeds blowing. Shit like that._ _Walkers, eat my dust. Captain, fly on._

"What the hell you doin'?"

Jo's eyelids flew open, just as someone grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her backwards off of the bike. She grabbed the tailpipe to catch her balance. The bike rocked under her hand.

"Watch it," Daryl said, steadying the bike as she straightened up. "The hell?" he snapped. "Who gave you the right to go messin' with my stuff."

"I just..I didn't..." Jo fumbled for a plausible lie and came up short. She'd been caught red-handed at the scene of the crime. Daryl raised the flashlight in his hand. She squinted against the light.

"You high?" he asked. Jo rose her arm to shield her eyes.

"No," she said. Daryl snorted and lowered the flashlight.

"You are. I can smell it."

"So what? Ain't none of your business what I do."

"Don't touch my stuff," he said, and then stomped off around the front of the truck. Jo took one last look at the bike, sighed, and then trailed after him.

"Is it yours?" she asked, standing behind him, with her arms crossed, while he knelt to unzip his tent. Daryl glanced at her over his shoulder for a moment, as if confused as to why she was still there.

"What?" he said.

Jo rolled her eyes. "The bike, dumb ass."

"No," Daryl said, yanking back the zipper. "It's Merle's."

"Well, I guess you've kinda inherited it then. Hard to drive with one hand, ya know."

"You want somethin'?" Daryl stood and faced her. She took a step back.

"Nah." Jo let her arms drop to her side. "Guess not." She turned to leave. Three steps away, though, she stopped when Daryl called out to her.

"Hold up. You need somethin' for the pain?"

"Huh?" Jo spun around.

"Your side," he said, gesturing to his ribs. "I got somethin' stronger than dope."

"Sure," she said, before giving herself time to think about it. _I could use something for the pain_. She waited while Daryl rummaged around in his tent. Soon, he reappeared with a plastic baggie in his hand.

"Think there's some percs in here," he said, digging through the pale blue and pink pills. He fished out two powder blue tabs and held them out to her. Jo reached out to take them, but paused.

"I ain't got anything to trade with," she said, letting her arm drop again. Merle's implied proposition from a few days ago came back to her. _I ain't got no cash but I'm sure we could work out some kind of a trade..._

"Take 'em," Daryl said, pushing the pills into her hand. "Ain't mine, any way."

_Must be Merle's. _It seemed only fair that she take them. After all, she had saved Merle's life. Jo tossed back the pills. They stuck in her throat. She swallowed hard, forcing them down. Daryl sat down on the ground by the open entrance to his tent and turned off the flashlight. Jo lingered where she stood. She didn't want to go back to her tent and her unpacked bags.

"So, you comin' to Atlanta?" she asked.

"Looks like," Daryl said.

"Us too."

He wasn't looking at her. She didn't even know if he'd heard and she didn't particularly care either. Jo stretched out on the ground. Dead grass rustled under her head. Above, the sky was splattered with silver pricks of light.

"Never used to be able to see the stars," she said. "Must be cuz' Atlanta's dark now."

Still, nothing from Daryl's direction. Still, she didn't care. A warm, fuzzy sensation had begun to creep down the back of her neck. It trickled slowly down her spine, into her stomach, straight down into her toes. A few minutes later and nothing hurt anymore. Not in her body. Not in her head. Tomorrow morning was as distant as the stars. She got dizzy looking up and closed her eyes.

"You gonna fall asleep?" Daryl asked.

"No," she muttered. But not long after, she was drifting off. She felt like her body was sinking into the ground. _I couldn't move even if I wanted to. _Just before Jo fell asleep, she wondered if this is what it felt like to die. _Really, it's not so bad._


End file.
